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THE 


BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


A REVIEW 


DR. RICHARD FULLER AND OTHERS 


and the TeM^ of dornmnnion.” 



JOSEPH At SEISS, D.D. 


yTEW 


philadelphia\^^. 
G. W. FEEDEEIck. 
1883. 








^ T Lii^Raxy 

I v\ ashington 

I ^ I n-^ i .V iRi a ■ ■ ai m ll^^i■ ^ ll ■ 11 ■ Ii n < y ‘T»n ^ . , i. J 




COPYRIGHTED, 1883. 



.■ ■• >v ■ .<• 


- 4 Sr 







PREFACE. 


This book has grown out of a series of articles pub¬ 
lished in the Lutheran Observer during the winter and 
spring of 1854, which, with a few emendations and 
additions, soon after appeared in a small volume, which 
has been for some time out of print. The constant 
inquiry for it, and the urgent solicitations of the pub¬ 
lisher, have induced the author to prepare it for a new 
edition. It has been mostly rewritten, materially 
enlarged, and is now meant to be a compact resume of 
the whole controversy. The aim of the author has 
been to produce something more than is to be found in 
the ordinary and small treatises on the subject, and 
something less elaborate and scholastic than the larger 
works which are seldom found outside of the libraries 
of the learned. The book is designed to give, in a 
form adapted to the common reader, a full view of the 
questions between us and Baptists, and thus to aid pas¬ 
tors in ridding themselves of the annoyances to which 
an insolent, fawning, and insidious sectarianism often 
subjects them. 

The author has endeavored to speak the truth in 
love.^^ If comment has occasionally assumed a tone of 
severity, facts and fidelity not only excuse but demand 
it. The wisdom that comes from above prefers purity 
to peace. Truth will admit of no compromises with 
l* 6 



PREFACE. 


error. It must be spoken; and to speak it without feel¬ 
ing is to treat it with indifference. The malicious and 
slanderous intentions which have been assigned, from 
the pulpit and elsewhere, as the motives prompting the 
former issues of this work, are firmly disclaimed. The 
author does not beg for favors, but he insists upon 
justice. The teachings of Baptists are full of the 
grossest assaults upon the Church and its ordinances, 
which, with our convictions, we are in duty bound to 
meet and expose. “Earnestly contend for the faith 
which was once delivered to the saints,^' is an inspired 
injunction which the writer does not feel at liberty to 
neglect. He believes that Baptists are in serious error, 
and he would reclaim them if possible, at least check 
their misdirected 2 ;eal, by showing that material modi¬ 
fications of their system are essential to harmonize it 
with the truth. And above all would he furnish to 
sincere, unsuspecting, but uninformed people the means 
of protection against the mischievous entanglements of 
a sectarianism which holds in its very life the excom¬ 
munication of all but its own abettors. 

May God bless this attempt to defend the Church 
from the imposition of a modal observance not required 
in his word, and overrule its destiny to the restraint of 
unwarranted proscriptiveness and to the praise of his 
ever-adorable name! 


Baltimore, September 1st, 1858. 


CONTENTS. 


PART FIRST. 

PAfllt 

Chap. I.— Introductory Observations — Question stated 9 

11.—General Arguments. 18 

III. —Meaning of the Word Bapto. 29 

IV. —The Addition of zo. 43 

V.—The Question of Divers Significations. 51 

VI.—Baptizo—The Lexicons. 57 

VIL—Baptizo—The Classics. 67 

VIII.—Baptizo—The Authorities. 89 

IX.—Baptizo—The Septuagint. 105 

X.—Baptizo—The Fathers. 118 

XI.—Baptizo in the New Testament—Preliminary 

Question. 137 

XII.—Baptizo in the New Testament—Jewish Lus¬ 
trations. 150 

XIII. —Baptizo in the New Testament—Its True 

Meaning. 164 

XIV. —Mode of Baptism—Scriptural Hints. 185 

XV.—Mode of Baptism—Baptist Arguments. 203 

XVI.—Mode of Baptism—Baptist Arguments con¬ 
tinued. 234 


7 


















8 


CONTENTS. 


PAG 8 


Chap. XVII.—History of Baptism as to Mode. 248 

XVIII.—Mode of Baptism practiced by the Greek 

Church. 260 

XIX.—Developments and Tendencies of the Bap¬ 
tist System. 268 

XX.—Analogy—An Independent Argument 

against the Baptist Dogma. 277 

PART SECOND. 

XXL—Infant Baptism no Sin. 286 

XXII.—Infant Baptism not contrary to the Com¬ 
mission . 294 

XXIII.—Relations of Infants to the Kingdom—^An 

Argument for their Baptism. 317 

XXIV.—Infant Baptism practiced by the Apostles 337 









THE 


BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


CHAPTEE I. 

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS—THE QUESTION 
PRESENTED. 

Baptism is an appointment of God,—a sacra¬ 
ment of our holy religion. The command of Jesus 
is, “Go, teach [make disciples, or Christians, of] 
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
have commanded you.^^ It is not a matter of in¬ 
difference whether we have been baptized or not. 
The apostle classes baptism among “ the principles 
of the doctrine of Christ.It is vitally connected 
with Christianity itself. Every Christian should 
therefore know in what it consists, and who may 
properly receive it. The disagreements which 
have sprung up upon these points are much to be 
regretted. 

For the most part, those who hold to baptism 
as an external ordinance maintain and teach, that 

9 



10 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


it is the religious application of water, according 
to the formulary of Christ, by an authorized minis¬ 
ter of the gospel, in any quantity, to any subject 
that is at all in the condition of being made a 
learner in Christ. It also seems remarkable that 
any should dissent from this view of what the 
Scriptures teach in the case. There is, however, 
a large and varied class of religionists who differ 
from this general understanding of the Church, 
and insist, even to the excommunication of those 
who do not think with them, that there is no true 
and valid baptism where the subject is not an adult 
believer, and wholly immersed in water. Book 
after book has been written, and circulated with 
unfaltering industry, charging the Church with 
apostasy from Christ’s commands on this subject 
for more than a thousand years. 

One of the more recent productions on this con¬ 
troversy, is a 12mo volume of 251 pages, entitled 
‘^Baptism and the Terms of Communion: an Argu¬ 
ment, by Richard Fuller.” This book is published 
by authority, has reached its third edition, and is 
distributed and spoken of by Baptists as present¬ 
ing the chief strength of their position. Its 
author is known as a gentleman of fortune, an ex¬ 
lawyer, a doctor of divinity, and a minister highly 
esteemed and honored by the people with whom 
he operates. He professes to write in a catholic 
and fraternal spirit; and, with the exception of a 
few of his fundamental positions, he evidently 
presents some improvement upon the temper of 
those whose exploded philology and logic he has 
so diligently collected and reproduced. He avows 


INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 11 

himself Baptist on principle, and not in sectarian 
ism nor bigotry;’’ that is, he claims to be an 
exception to Baptists generally, who, if we are to 
take the implications of his own avowal, are both 
sectarian and bigoted. How far he is entitled to 
this exemption will appear more clearly in what 
is to follow. We take up his book, and shall 
assign it the prominent place in this treatise, 
because it is one of the most recent on that side 
of the question, and presents all the latest phases 
of the Baptist argument, and is considered by 
some as unanswerable. 

To which of the many tribes of the Baptist de¬ 
nomination Dr. Fuller belongs, he does not tell us. 
He rather insinuates that he does not exactly coin¬ 
cide with either class of that diversified household. 
This is, perhaps, the most convenient way to 
excuse himself from responsibility for some of 
the more disagreeable features connected with the 
Baptist s^^stem. Indeed, whatever exceptions we 
may be compelled to take to his doctrines or his 
logic, we may readily accord to him much tact 
and shrewdness as a dialectician. His Argument,” 
to those unacquainted with the subject, bears an 
air of plausibility very well calculated to make 
an impression. His dexterous evasions, his subtle 
management to pass off for granted the veiy 
things to be proven, his array of learned authori¬ 
ties on points which nobody denies, and the 
whining affectation with which he presents his 
doctrines, to say nothing of his misrepresentations 
and unreliable quotations, give to his book a 
certain factitious force, to which his cause is by 


12 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


no means entitled, and which, by divine help, we 
propose to reduce to its real nothingness. 

For Dr. Fuller personally we have none hut the 
kindest feelings. We trust that, with all his mis¬ 
takes and false reasonings, he is conscientious and 
sincere. The numerous unfortunate predicaments 
in which he has placed himself in his book may 
have resulted, in part, from habits brought with 
him from another profession, but much more from 
the mistakes, to say nothing worse, of those whom 
he has chosen as his guides. We will not say of 
him, as the biographer of Carson has said of the 
rejecters of the Baptist system, that ^^want of re¬ 
ligious honesty” has been the controlling secret. He 
is a fellow-laborer in the gospel in the same city with 
us. He is respected as a Christian. We award to 
his intentions the character of uprightness. If 
conscience did permit, we would rather agree than 
dispute with him. We have no love for contro¬ 
versy. It pains us as much to be driven into these 
contentions about sacred things as it pains Dr. 
Fuller and his friends to exclude us from the table 
of the Lord. It is not that we love our Baptist 
brethren less, but because we love truth more, that 
we have been induced to take up the pen in this 
connection. 

This, however, is the fact, that Dr. Fuller, in 
common with others, has ventured upon a move¬ 
ment of aggression upon the cherished faith and 
practice of millions upon millions of Christian 
believers. He has solemnly and emphatically 
given out the charge, that about one hundred and 
ninety-five out of every two hundred of the great 


INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 


13 


household of Christ are guilty of downright and 
palpable violation of one of the plainest and most 
positive commands of the Savior, that they are quite 
outside of the true visible Church, and that they 
are occupying a position of risk and jeopardy 
enough to alarm every serious mind. In this we 
believe him to be altogether mistaken. But he has 
pressed the matter with all his strength, and con¬ 
tinues to press it, and hundreds more are devoting 
their time and energies almost exclusively to the 
same point; and there is no alternative left us hut 
to surrender our convictions and the libei’ty 
which we have in Christ Jesus, or to take up one 
of the swords which have been defiantly crossed 
before us. We have no fault to find with our 
Baptist friends for choosing to perform their bap¬ 
tisms by immersion. This is a liberty of which 
we have no wish to deprive them. But the arro¬ 
gant assumptions with which it is sought to brand 
our baptism as not only invalid but profane, and 
the unwarranted exclusiveness of denying to us a 
place in the visible Church or any good hope of 
heaven, we cannot give place to by subjection, no, 
not for an hour, lest the truth of the gospel be 
wrested from us. We stand entirely on the de¬ 
fensive. And, if Dr. Duller is disposed to complain 
that his teachings are controverted, let him not 
forget the daring assault which he has made upon 
the faith and hope of myriads of God’s children. 
If he should feel himself incommoded by the 
resistance encountered, let him recollect that he 
has ^^cast the glove.’’ 

To those familiar with the Baptist controversy 

2 


14 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

it is hardly necessary to state the features of the 
s^’-stem which Dr. Fuller’s ^‘argument” is designed 
to sustain. It is that maintained in common 
by Campbellites, Christ-ians, Tunkers, Millerites, 
and ail other Baptists. We do not attribute to 
him all the vagaries and heresies of the parties 
named, but mean, simply, that the system which 
he supports is that supported by all Baptists. 
But, as he disclaims being a Baptist in the depart¬ 
ments of “ sectarianism and bigotry,^’ and is very 
solicitous that his reviewers should quote him 
fairly, it may be as well, once for all, to show what 
his position is. It may be summed up in the 
following particulars:— 

1. That baptism is immersion in water; and that 
where there is not a total immersion there is no bap¬ 
tism. He says, ^^Baptizo always denotes a total 
immersion.’^ Jesus commands his disciples to be 
immersed.” ‘^‘The very thing, the only act he 
commands, is immersion.” (Pp. 19, 50, 70.) 

2. That all baptisms,— performed by regu¬ 
lar ministers with the solemn design to administer 
Christ’s ordinance, though the subjects be believers 
devoutly intending to receive the baptismal sacra¬ 
ment, though the holy name of the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost be reverently invoked,— 
unless the whole body be immersed, are altogether vain 
and nugatory, and the parties remain unbaptized. 
He evinces a Singular cautiousness and reserve as 
to the plain and categorical avowal of this inevi¬ 
table sequence of his first position; but the evi¬ 
dence that this is his doctrine is so clear, as well 
upon the face as in the very marrow of his ^^argu- 


INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 


15 


meut,” that he will not dare to disclaim it. <^No 
one can partake of the [Lord’s] Supper/’ says he, 
^^who is not a member in a visible Church.” 
^‘Baptism is a prerequisite to admission into a 
visible Church properly organized.” Baptizo 
signifies to immerse, and has no other meaning.” 
‘‘We cannot admit to the Supper those whom we 
regard as unbaptized.” “We cannot recognize 
church-membership in Pedobaptist Churches as 
conferring any sort of title to the Supper.” “To 
admit them would be to admit members without 
baptism.” It is plain, then, that he repudiates all 
baptisms which have not been performed by the 
total immersion of the subject. 

3. That to refuse to be immersed is disobedience to a 
positive command^ involving a degree of criminality 
making the prospect of final salvation exceedingly prob¬ 
lematical. This is another point on which he is a 
little unsteady,— now half affirming, and then 
half denying,—at one time seeming to recognize 
us as his dear brethren in Christ, and at another 
time pointing with horror to our dreadful danger 
by reason of our disobedience in the one thing 
of going under the water. But why this mouth¬ 
ing of a matter so solemn, and entering so vitally 
into this controversy? Why not out boldly and 
fairly ? We are either Christians entitled to heaven, 
or we are not. If we are Christians accepted of 
God, then all this ado about baptizo and immersion 
is sheer nonsense and sectarian chicanery, and 
the unimmersed, if obedient in other respects, are 
as good and as safe as the immersed, whether once 
or thrice, backwards or forwards. If I)r. Fuller 


16 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


admits this, he surrenders his cause, and the con¬ 
troversy is at an end; and, if he does not admit 
it, then he maintains that the salvation of the 
unimmersed is exceedingly doubtful, and he can 
have no clear hope of meeting any of them in 
heaven. But hear him :—My dear reader, the 
matter before you is not an abstraction: it is a 
plain duty which meets you at the very thresh¬ 
old of the Christian course, and which you may 
not evade without insult to the Savior and peril 
TO YOUR souL.'^ ‘‘I regard baptism just as I do 
any other command; and I dare not trench upon 
God’s prerogative and decide what is to be the 
consequence in eternity of disobedience to any com¬ 
mand.” Do not say we lay too much stress on 
baptism \i.e. immersion]. Upon this point I 
adjure you not to upbraid us, but to obey Christ.” 
(Pp. 101, 104,105.) In what light do these state¬ 
ments place our author but in that of holding that 
the absence of immersion disqualifies for heaven? 

4. That to baptize an infant is not only useless, but 
an infraction of the command of Christ, and a positive 
sin. ^‘Infant baptism,” says he, makes void the 
commandment of God by a human tradition.” 

It reflects ingloriously upon God and tarnishes 
the glory of the atonement.” He even compares 
the practice of it to the scenes of Bedlam.” 
(Pp. 207, 209, 123.) 

5. That the wisest and holiest men on earth have no 
right whatever to the holy sacrament of the Lord’s 
Supper so long as they have not been immersed in 
water. He says, ‘‘We cannot recognize church- 
membership IN these bodies [Fedobaptist Churches'] 


INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 


17 


AS CONFERRING ANY SORT OF TITLE TO THE SUP- 

per/’ (p. 238.) These are plain words. 

We do not suppose that Dr. Fuller will pro¬ 
nounce these quotations unfair. If these particu¬ 
lars do not present the doctrinal essence of his 
book, it teaches nothing, and his “ argument’’ is 
a mere beating of the air. We have no wish to 
ascribe to him what he has not avowed in some 
tangible shape. We do not, therefore, misrepre¬ 
sent him, or in the least pervert his meaning, 
when we affirm that, according .to him, Christ has 
commanded men to be immersed; that all who 
are not immersed are outside of the pale of the 
visible Church, and in great danger of losing their 
souls; that to administer baptism to an infant is 
an evil and a wicked prostitution of a Christian 
ordinance; and that the practice of infant bap¬ 
tism, or refusal to be immersed, is disobedience to 
Christ, involving and arguing unfitness to partake 
of the Holy Supper, and furnishing ground to fear 
exclusion from heaven. 

All this we emphatically deny. Here, then, 
we join issue, and invite all to hear, and consider, 
and decide for the truth, on whichever side it may 
be found. 


2* 


18 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


CHAPTEE II. 

GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 

Before proceeding to analyze the Baptist argu¬ 
ment as Dr. Fuller has presented it, we desire to 
advert to a few general considerations which weigh 
so strongly ;p,gainst his doctrine, as to be them¬ 
selves conclusive unless confronted with the most 
solid and inflexible proofs to the contrary. 

1. The whole gospel system is a system of liberty 
It was so predicted; Isa. xlii. 7, Ixi. 1. It was so 
proclaimed by its first preachers: Eom. vii. 6, viii. 
2; Gal. V. 1. It is specifically presented as a 
system of freedom from the bondage of burden¬ 
some ceremonies: Gal. iv. 3-7. Paul says ex¬ 
pressly, “ If ye be dead with Christ from the rudi¬ 
ments of the world, why, as though living in the 
world, are ye subject to ordinances(Col. ii. 20.) 

Why is my liberty judged of another man’s con¬ 
science?” (1 Cor. X. 29.) “Stand fast, therefore, in 
the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,’ 
and be not entangled again with the yoke of bond¬ 
age.” (Gal. V. 1.) And how dissonant with this 
“perfect law of liberty,” how subversive of the 
free spirit of the gospel, how like the old bondage 
to grievous ceremonies, and how unlikely to be 


GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 


19 


a part of the glorious economy of grace, to have 
all its sublime blessings bound up in and made 
dependent on the miserable little external accident 
of being far enough in the waters of baptism to 
have them close for an instant over our heads I 
How utterly foreign to the whole strain and 
spirit of ‘^the better covenant’' that even the least 
of its precious promises should be linked with 
such a mere puncto of outward ceremony! The 
thing is so grossly incongruous with all that re¬ 
lates to the nature of a system pre-eminently 
spiritual and gracious, that it cannot be soberly 
entertained fora moment, except upon the clearest 
and most unexceptionable proofs. 

II. The vast and overwhelming majority of all 
Christian people for many, many ages, including 
multitudes whose names the Church wears upon 
her heart as the jewelry of the cross,—men as 
conscientious, holy, studious, learned, and gifted 
by the Spirit as any that ever sunk beneath the 
waters,—men who fought the battles of the Lord, 
and won to themselves holy renown as wide as 
Christendom and lasting as the world,— have 
maintained that there is no law requiring Chris¬ 
tians to be immersed, and were themselves never 
immersed. And are we to believe that they were 
all unbaptized, all unqualified to commune in the 
holy Supper, all outside of the visible Church, all 
fundamentally wrong in their views of the first 
principles of Christianity, and that it is doubtful 
whether any of them have reached heaven? How 
dare we thus sunder the cords of sympathy which 


20 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

bind US to our fathers, and extinguish the glowing 
hope of meeting them in glory? How can we 
thus asperse their fame and insult their memories 
and their honored graves? Well does Dr. Fullei 
speak of this as a matter which is painful.” But 
the very painfulness of it is a powerful presump¬ 
tion against the truth of his s^’^stem, and a pre¬ 
sumption which cannot be set aside except by the 
resistless force of demonstration itself To talk 
of lodged and incurable prejudices” does not 
mend the matter, but only adds a deejier tinge 
of sadness to our contemplations of the honored 
dead. If our illustrious ancestors and predecessors 
were all in error, if the world’s great lights were 
all so far from the truth, as the Baptist theory 
teaches, let us not be taunted by the mockery of 
consolation that theirs was a wilful blindness. 
We are sorry to find our Baptist friends in such 
hot haste to pass from this point the very moment 
it is touched. It is a great and interesting in¬ 
quiry,—one which, next to that of our own per¬ 
sonal salvation, is the most important and absorb¬ 
ing involved in this debate. To declare it im¬ 
pertinent” does neither render it so nor meet the 
question. Aiid, if Dr. Fuller is an exception 
among Baptists, he has shown upon this point 
that he is not so far an exception among men as 
to be able to grasp a hot iron with a steady firm¬ 
ness. The very thought seems to appall him,—as 
well it may,— and he hastens to bury it out of 
his own and his reader’s sight. We here again 
drag it forth to his view as a thing which he must 
face or give up his theory. We press it upon 


GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 


21 


every immersionist, not as absolute proof of the 
error of his system, but as presumptive evidence 
against him which must be taken as decisive 
unless set aside by testimony which will admit 
of no escape. 

III. Mere modes, and ceremonial particulars are 
never treated of in connection with other appoint¬ 
ments of Christ; and we cannot conceive how bap¬ 
tism should be made an exception. Christ has 
enjoined the celebration of the holy Supper; but 
he has said nothing as to the outward manner in 
which that sacrament is to be observed. He 
ordained the Christian • ministry, but has said 
nothing as to how we are to go to the nations, or 
as to the mode in which we are to deliver the 
gospel message. He has made it obligatory upon 
us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves to¬ 
gether for public worship; but he has enjoined 
nothing as to how these sacred convocations are 
to be held, or as to the specific ritual by which 
their exercises are to be regulated. He has made 
it our duty to pray; but he has not designated the 
times for it, nor told us whether it is to be done 
kneeling, standing, sitting, extempore, or from a 
written form. And so in regard to all his great 
commandments: it is the thing in its real sub¬ 
stance which he enjoins, whilst the particular 
mode of it is left free to be adapted to circum¬ 
stances. And, as specific forms or modes have no 
essential connection with any other great require¬ 
ments of God, the strong presumption is that it is 
the same in the case of baptism. It is the spiritual 


22 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


substance of the thing that the Scriptures are con¬ 
cerned with, and little variable external accidents 
are not taken into account. The spiritual essence 
of baptism is induction or inauguration into the 
faith of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
It is upon this that the Scriptures continually fix, 
without even so much as specifically prescribing 
the element to be used, much less the mode in 
which it is to be used. All analogy, therefore, is 
against the Baptist theory, and must forever 
overrule it, unless demonstration of the most 
positive nature can be produced to the contrary. 

lY. The scope and meaning of baptism itself is 
against the doctrine of our Baptist brethren. It 
is the sacrament of regeneration and remission of 
sins. The command of Peter on the day of Pente¬ 
cost was, Be baptized, every one of you, for the 
remission of sins.’^ (Acts ii. 38.) Ananias said to 
Paul, Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy 
sins.’^ (Acts xxii. 16.) Jesus says, ^‘Except a man 
be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God,’’ (John iii. 8;) a passage 
concerning which Wall justly sa^^s, There is not 
any one Christian writer, of any antiquity, in any 
language, but who understands it of baptism; and, 
if it be not so understood, it is difficult to give an 
account how a person is born of water any more 
than born of wood.” Paul speaks of Christians as 

saved by the washing of regeneration and renew¬ 
ing of the Holy Ghost;” as having “put off the 
body of the sins of the flesh hy the circumcision of 
Christ” (Tit. iii. 5, 6; Col. ii. 11, 13.) Peter says, 


GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 


23 


Baptism, doth also now save us;’’ a sacrament 
which he describes to be, ^^not the putting away 
of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good 
conscience toward God.” (1 Peter iii. 21.) Christ 
gave himself for the Church, that he might sanc¬ 
tify and cleanse it with the washing of water by 
the word.” (Eph. v. 25, 26.) Irenseus styles bap¬ 
tism “our regeneration unto God.” (Lib. i. cap. 
18.) Tertullian calls it “ the happy sacrament of 
water, whereby we are washed from the sins of our 
former blindness and recovered to eternal life.” 
(Mason’s Selections, p. 111.) Origen says, “The 
baptism of the Church is given for the remission 
of sins.” Augustine exclaims, “ Behold ! persons 
are baptized, then all their sins are forgiven.” 
(Sermon on Eom. viii. 30.) Upon the question, 
“ What are the benefits of baptism ?” Luther 
answers, “ It works the forgiveness of sins.” 
(Small Cat., Part 4.) Calvin says, “Eemission 
of sins is so dependent on baptism that it can¬ 
not by any means be separated from it.” (Inst., 
tom. iv. cap. 15, sec. 4. The Confession of Hel¬ 
vetia says, “ To be baptized in the name of Christ 
is to be enrolled, entered, and received into cove¬ 
nant and family, and so into the inheritance of the 
sons of God. Baptism, according to the institution 
of the Lord, is the fount of regeneration.” The 
Bohemian Confession calls it “ the sacrament of 
the new birth; that is, of regeneration or washing 
with water in the word of life.” The Confession 
of France says that in it “we are engrafted into 
Christ’s body, that, being washed in his blood, we 
may also be renewed to holiness of life.” Knapp, 


24 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


whom Dr. Fuller quotes with so much approbation, 
says, “Baptism represents purification from sins, 
and is designed to promote this end in the one who 
is baptized.'^ (Theol., vol. ii. p. 510.) Flacius says, 
“Baptism, and to be baptized, means an internal 
washing, remission of sins, and an ever-continuing 
renewal.’’ (Clavis’s Scrip. Sac., art. Bapt., p. 66.) 

But to multiply authorities upon this point is 
needless. All sound theologians admit and contend 
that baptism, in its true acceptation, is not a 
mere external ordinance, but a sacrament of deep 
spiritual import, in which the soul is absolved 
from guilt and savingly incorporated with Jesus 
Christ. 

Let us not be misunderstood. We do not teach 
or hold the doctrine ordinarily called “ Baptismal 
Degeneration i.e. we do not believe that the 
mere aj)plieation of water to a human subject, in 
any mode cr quantity, can wash away sins or work 
any subjective change in the heart. What we 
affirm, and what we understand to be affirmed in 
these quotations is, not that baptism subjectively coti- 
cludes regeneration, but that it sacramentally mcludes 
it, since it pledges those fundamental relations on 
which regeneration depends. Only when the grace 
of baptism becomes a renewing and practical power 
in the soul is a man really regenerated; but it is 
still the fruit and product of that grace which is 
sacramentally conferred and sealed in baptism. 
Baptism is not the exclusive medium of that grace, 
but it is the divine sacrament of that grace which 
regenerates, and plants in the Kingdom of God. 


GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 


25 


What the grace of baptism is and works cannot be 
authenticated at the moment by conscious experi¬ 
ence, but it is authenticated by the baptism God has 
appointed for the purpose; and what it authenticates 
is that out of which regeneration comes. It is a 
divine and spiritual transaction, in which the Lord 
makes over to the subject the whole contents of the 
covenant of grace as a reality for our benefit and 
salvation. 

What, then, has quantity of water to do with so 
divine and spiritual a matter ? It does not require 
much ink to make a valid signature to a deed or 
W'ill; and the water in baptism is only the sign- 
manual of God, sealing His covenant and grace to 
the person baptized. A little water from the crystal 
spring can serve for this full as well as tons of the 
contents of the filthy pools and stagnant cisterns to 
which Baptists invite their converts, and far better 
indicates the spiritual washing and inward cleansing 
which baptism contemplates, and the grace which 
it pledges and seals. Even Mr. Carson says: “I ad¬ 
mit that sprinkling a little water on any part of the 
body might be an emblem of purification.” (P. 164.) 
The spiritual goody not the outward mode, is the 
essential thing. 

Y. Looking at the foundation upon which Dr. 
Puller rests the whole fabric of his proscriptive 
system, we are at once struck with the extraor¬ 
dinary fact that his entire argument comprises 
nothing but a mere philological disquisition upon 
the meaning of one little Greek word. The entire 
eleven chapters devoted to this part of the subject 


26 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


are occupied with the one single point, What does 
baptizo mean ? The matter before us,’^ says he, 
<‘is a calm philological inquirj^ as to the meaning 
of a Greek word. . . . The simple inquiry is, as to 
the meaning of the Gr<^ek word baptizo.” (P. 12.) 
His interpretation of tnis simple word is the alpha 
and omega, the beginning, middle, and end, the 
body, soul, and sj)irit, of all he has to present to 
prove that ninety-five hundredths of Christ’s 
people are in a state of downright disobedience to 
their Lord, unfit for membership in our churches,’^ 
or to approach the Lord’s Supper, and without any 
sure or reliable hope of final salvation. This cer¬ 
tainly is very remarkable, that the great law of 
the gospel, and a point involving the eternal well¬ 
being and affecting the hopes of millions of Chris¬ 
tian people, should be made to turn upon one little 
word. Is it not an astounding doctrine, that in 
a divine revelation forming a library in itself a 
merciful and condescending God should have sus¬ 
pended the issues of his sublime scheme of grace 
upon the doubtful import of one single Greek 
word? According to the ancient prophets, the 
way of salvation is an open “hignway,” in which 
^Gvayfaring men, though fools, shall not err,” (Isa. 
XXXV. 8,) —so plain that he may run that readeth 
it,” (Hab. ii. 2,)—and laid down in divers forms, 
“ precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line 
upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a 
little.” ’(Isa. xxviii. 10.) But it seems, after all, 
that we must take Dr. Fuller’s say-so, or go to the 
study of Greek, before we can learn it; that the 
whole question lies in the interpretation of one 


GENERAL ARGUMENTS. 


27 


Greek word; and that we must go back to the old 
heathen writers to ascertain whether we are 
Christians, and consult Orpheus, Ileraclides Pon- 
ticus, Polybius, the Greek scholiasts on Euripides 
and Aratus, Alcibiades, Anacreon, ^sop, and Dio¬ 
dorus Siculus, to find out whether or not we have 
a good hope for heaven ! Let the reader but look 
at it, and consider the real nature of the question, 
and the real character of the testimony adduced to 
decide it, and he will find that Dr. Fuller’s “ argu¬ 
ment’^ bears absurdities upon its very face into 
which wo would hardly think it possible for a sane 
man to fall. 

YI. It is also a very remarkable fact, and hard 
to be accounted for, that, if the Baptist theory be 
true, it was so long in being discovered. The 
doctrine that “ baptizo means to immerse and no¬ 
thing else” is one of but recent development. It is 
nowhere so taught in all the records of antiquity. 
Until within a few scores of years, it lay concealed 
from all the learned men of all ages and nations. 
We have histories of Greek literature from Homer, 
a thousand years before Christ was born, to Con- 
stantinus Harmenopulus, nearly fourteen hundred 
years since Christ left this world, including all the 
writings of the poets, orators, historians, phy¬ 
sicians, philosophers, mathematicians, geographers, 
rhetoricians, and philologists of Greece, the Greek 
fathers of the Christian Church, and the Byzantine 
writers of the Middle Ages; and yet we have no 
account for all that time, nor up to a very recent 
period, that any author ever assumed the position 


28 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


by which it is now sought to excommunicate the 
great majority of the most eminent, active, and 
devout followers of Jesus on the face of the earth. 
Is not this exceedingly wonderful? Who can 
believe that a truth so essential to the very exist¬ 
ence of the Church—assuming it to be a truth— 
would have remained in such obscurity, so entirely 
hidden from the most careful observations of all 
men, until this eleventh hour of the world ? Why, 
the allegations of the Mormon prophet with regard 
to his new revelation are hardly less credible. 
Surely, the theory of our Baptist friends is neither 
in the Bible, nor in the Greek language, or else the 
high place of the subject in the Christian system 
would needs have secured for it the notice of 
scholars and divines, or engaged some special pro¬ 
vidence to bring it into view long ere this. 

We submit, then, that these prima facie and d 
priori considerations so embarrass, cripple, and 
contradict the whole Baptist scheme, that they 
must be conclusive of the question unless they 
can be confronted with direct, positive, and un¬ 
equivocal evidences to the contrary. 

What sort of evidences Dr. Fuller offers, will be 
our next subject of inquiry. 


THE MEANING OF THE WORD BAPTO. 


29 


CHAPTEE III. 

THE MEANING OF THE WORD BAPTO. 

All must agree that the word baptizo, which is 
the disputed word in this controversy, is a deriva¬ 
tive of the word bapto. It is equally certain that 
one of the ways of ascertaining the meaning of a 
secondary word is to find out the signification of 
its root or primitive. But, upon this law of inter¬ 
pretation, Dr. Fuller, if we understand him aright, 
has undertaken to differ from other people. We 
say if we understand him rightly; for there is 
a nebulosity about this part of his “argument’^ 
which renders it difficult of comprehension. 
Though he names his mental processes, as he has 
here given them, ^^a calm philological inquiry,^^ 
we defy any man to find an equal number of pages 
under such a title so utterly barren of herme¬ 
neutical reasoning and illustration, or so full of 
confusion and absurdities. We shall endeavor, 
however, to extract the component elements of 
his disquisition,” and to classify its jumbled de¬ 
partments, so as to reason upon them intelligently 
and in order. 

Dr. Fuller starts out by affirming that we have 
nothing to do with bapto in this controversy. This 
is his first canon, to the paternity of which he is 


30 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


exclusively entitled. Ko respectable writer, evei 
of his school, so far as we know, has ever taker 
such a position. Neither does he accompany it 
with the least attempt at proof,—as though it were 
a thing which nobody would dare to call in ques¬ 
tion. His friend Mr. Carson, on whom he so con¬ 
fidently relies, declares that the word baptizo is 
formed from bapto. Indeed, Dr. Fuller himself 
subsequently loses sight of his own declaration, 
and proceeds to found an argument on bapto to 
prove that baptizo means immerse and nothing 
else. ^‘In the Greek language,’^ says he, ‘Hhe 
addition of zo rather enforces than diminishes the 
primitive verb;’^ as, bapto, to dip; baptizo, to 
make one dip.’' We will therefore endeavor to 
ascertain first the meaning of bapto, and then exa¬ 
mine the value or force of the addition of zo, and 
thus show that Dr. Fuller’s doctrine concern¬ 
ing the word baptizo is a sheer assumption and 
forever untenable. 

Now, we assert, and will prove to the reader’s 
satisfaction, that bapto, so far from meaning a 
total submersion and nothing else, means also to 
wash, to cleanse, to wet, to moisten, to bedew, to stain, 
to tinge, and to dye, without regard to mode, and in 
some cases even to sprinkle. 

Our first appeal is to the lexicographers, whom 
Mr. Campbell, from whom Dr. Fuller has ex¬ 
tensively drawn, pronounces “ the most learned 
and the most competent witnesses in this case in 
the world.” (Debate with Eice, p. 58.) 

We begin with the native Greeks, who, accord¬ 
ing to' high Baptist authority, are unexceptionable 


THE MEANING OF THE WORD BAPTO. 


31 


guides in this matter, and must needs understand 
their Own language better than foreigners. 

The first is Hesychius, who lived in the fourth 
century of the Christian era, and is the oldest 
native Greek lexicographer with whom we are 
acquainted. He defines the word hajpto. He assigns 
to it but one general meaning; and that meaning 
he finds in the word antleo, which signifies to 
draw or pump water, and has no reference what 
ever to mode or immersion. 

2. Next in order is Gases, also a native Greek, 
w’ho compiled a large and valuable lexicon of the 
ancient Greek language, which is generally used 
and held in high estimation by those who speak 
the Greek. He defines bapto by brecho, pluno, 
gemizo, buthizo, antleo; that is, to wet, moisten, or 
bedew; to wash, to fill, to dip; to draw or pump 
water. 

3. Hedericus defines the word bapto by mergo, 
immergo, tingo, intingo, lavo;’^ that is, to dip, to 
plunge, to tinge, to dye, to wash. 

4. Coulon defines bapto by mergo, tingo, abluo;^^ 
that is, to dip, to dye, to cleanse. 

5. CTrszwws defines it by ‘^abluo, aspergo that 
is, to wash, to sprinkle. 

6. Scapula defines it by mergo, immergo,— 
item tingo, inficere, imbruere,—item lavo;” that is, 
to dip, to plunge,—also to stain or tinge, to dye, 
imbrue,— also to wash. 

7. Schrevelius defines it by mergo, intingo, 
lavo, haurio that is, to dip, dye, wash, draw 
water. 

8. Donnegan translates bapto to dip, to plunge 


32 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


into water, to submerge, to wash, to dye, to color, 
to wash, to draw out water.” 

9. Pickering renders it, to dip; to steep, dye, 
color; to wash; to draw up; to fill by drawing up; 
to bathe one's self. ■ 

10. Liddell and Scott render it, to dip; to dip in 
dye, color, steep; to dye the hair. 

11. Lunbar renders it, to dip, plunge, immerse; 
to wash; to wet, moisten, sprinkle; to dye, stain, 
color. 

Now, if these lexicographers are ^^the most 
learned and the most competent witnesses in this 
case in the world,” as the most learned Baptists 
have admitted, our position is already made out 
and sustained. Every man acquainted with the 
Latin knows that lavo means simply to wash, 
without regard to mode; and that, when it occa¬ 
sionally departs from its simple and direct mean¬ 
ing, it signifies sprinkling as well as any other appli¬ 
cation of water. Ainsworth, Andrews, Anthon, 
and others give besprinkle and bedew as among its 
significations. Hedericus, Scapula, Schrevelius, 
give lavo as one of the fixed meanings of bapto. 
Abluo certainly means simply to wash or cleanse; 
and Coulon and Ursinus give abluo as the mean¬ 
ing of bapto. Brecho unquestionably means simply 
to wet, moisten, or bedew, and so pluno means 
simply to wash, or cleanse; and these are the first 
and prominent meanings which Gases applies to 
bapto. And Donnegan, Pickering, and Dunbar, in 
plain English, give wash as a proper interpreta¬ 
tion of bapto. Washing and cleansing do not 
necessarily imply immersion. Moistening, bedew- 


THE MEANING OP THE WORD BAPTO. 


33 


hig, sprinkling, staining, and dyeing the hair, pre¬ 
clude immersion altogether. Bapto, therefore, 

DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN TO IMxMERSE AND NO¬ 
THING ELSE. 

To the lexicographers we add a few authorities. 
One of particular value in this controversy is from 
the distinguished Baptist critic, Alexander Carson, 
of Tubbermore, Ireland. Bapto,'’ says he, ^‘sig¬ 
nifies TO DYE BY SPRINKLING, AS PROPERLY AS BY 
DIPPING, though originally it was confined to the 
latter.’^ He refers to examples, in which, he says, 
“ it could not be known even that bapto has the mean¬ 
ing of dip.” “ The word,’’ says he, ‘‘ has come by 
appropriation to denote dyeing, without reference to 
mode.” “Nor are such applications of the word 
to be accounted for by metaphor, as Dr. Gale 
asserts. They are as literal as the primitive 
MEANING.” (Pp. 44, 45, 51, Carson on Baptism.) 
According to this lauded scholar, then, bapto, so 
far from always signifying immersion, is often 
used in its literal sense where mode is altogether 
excluded. 

Another authority is Edwards, who was for 
many years a respected Baptist minister. “I 
will say thus much of the term bapto,” says he: 
“that it is a term of such latitude that he who 
shall attempt to prove, from its use in various 
authors, an absolute and total immersion, will find 
he has undertaken that which he cannot per¬ 
form.” 

Another is the Methodist theologian. Dr. Wat¬ 
son, Avho says, “The verb bapto, with its deriva¬ 
tives, signifies to dip the hand into a dish, to stain 


34 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


a vesture with blood, to wet the body with dew, 
to paint or smear the face with colors, to stain the 
hand by pressing a substance, to be overwhelmed 
in the waters as a sunken ship, to be drowned by 
falling into the water, to sink in the neuter sense, 
to immerse totally, to plunge up to the neck, to 
be immersed up to the middle, to be drunk with 
wine, to be dyed, tinged, or imbued, to wash hy 
affusion of water, to pour water upon the hands or 
any part of the body, to besprinkle.” 

Professor Wilson, of the Eojml College, Belfast, 
says, That bapto denotes to dye, without regard to 
mode, and even where immersion is in terms ex¬ 
cluded, is beyond the pale of candid disputation. 

All this ought to be enough to satisfy men on 
this subject. It is competent, however, to go be¬ 
yond lexicons and authorities to the passages in 
which the word bapto is used. We therefore make 
an appeal to the Greek language itself. We will 
begin wdth the Septiiagint, or Greek version of the 
Old Testament and Apociypha, as being the most 
nearly related to the writings of the New Testa¬ 
ment, the teachings of which on this subject it is 
our wish to ascertain. 

In Daniel iv. 33 (we give the reference as in 
the English Bible) it is written, ^‘And he [Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar] was driven from men, and did eat 
grass as oxen, and his body [ebaphae'] was wet with 
[apo, from'] the dew of heaven.'^ Also in Daniel 
V. 21: ‘‘They fed him with grass like oxen, and 
his body [ebaphae^ was wet with the dew of 
heaven.’^ Here is bapto in two instances, in both 
of which it signifies the gentle moistening of an 





THE MEANING OF THE WORD BAPTO. 


35 


exposed body from the falling dew. Was it a case 
of immersion ?* Mr. Carson says, “If all the Avater 
in the ocean had thus fallen on the monarch, it 
would not have been a literal immersion. The 
mode would still be wanting.^’ (P. 36.) Neither 
was it a figurative any more than a literal immer¬ 
sion. It was simply a wetting; and no man can 
make any thing more out of it. 

In Leviticus xiv. 4-6, we have these words, 
“Then shall the priest command to take for him 
that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, 
and cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop; and the 
priest shall command that one of the birds he killed 
in an earthen vessel, over running water. As for 
the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar-wood, 
and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall \ha]psei\ 
dip them and the living bird in the blood of the 
bird that was killed.Here is a case of the use 
of bapto Avhere total immersion was an impossi¬ 
bility. How can you totally immerse a living 
bird, cedar-wood, scarlet, and hyssop in the blood 
of a single bird? Hr. Puller is e^ddently em¬ 
barrassed with this passage, and disposes of it in 
a way exceedingly reprehensible. He tells us that 
he “trembles when he remembers the language of 
God as to him who adds to or takes from the words 
of the Bible.’’ AVe are therefore surprised at the 
liberty which he has taken with the verses we 
have just quoted. On page 45, under express pre¬ 
tensions to honesty, where he charges that others 
have been dishonest, he records these words:—“If 
my readers will refer to the chapter, they will see 
that water was to be taken from a running stream 


36 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


in some vessel, and into this water the blood of the 
bird was to fall, into this vessel the dipping was 
to be performed.^^ We believe that he has im¬ 
ported this from Mr. Carson, who has led him 
astray on more than one point. But, from what¬ 
ever source he obtained it, it is simply untrue. 
There is nothing of the sort in the record of the 
case. His reference to verses 50, 51 will not 
relieve the palpable misrepresentation which he 
has put upon record. Those verses refer to the 
cleansing of a house; the case in point refers to 
the cleansing of a man. But neither are his 
statements true in the case of the house. His 
language is as follows:—“First, the blood is poured 
into a vessel of running water” (We have heard 
of wooden, earthen, and vessels; but we have 

yet to learn what is meant by “vessels of running 
water”!) But such is our author’s version of this 
prescription:—“First, the blood is poured into a 
vessel of running water. Then the things are dipped. 
Lastly, the defiled objects are sprinkled.” Now, 
look at the passage of which this pretends to be 
the luminous explanation. You will observe that 
it contains nothing about the pouring of the blood, 
and nothing about vessels of running water. Moses 
knew nothing about such ceremonies or such 
utensils for the cleansing of lepers. Here is the 
passage to which Hr. Fuller specifically refers:— 
“And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, 
and cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop; and he 
shall kill the one of the two birds in an earthen 
vessel, OVER running water; and he shall take the 
cedar-wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and 


THE MEANING OF THE WORD BAPTO. 37 

the living bird, and \haj)sei\ shall dip them in the 
BLOOD OF THE SLAIN bird/^ Tliiis far there was 
no mingling of water in the provision for cleansing 
either a house or a man. The “earthen vessel,’^ 
and the dying bird in it, were only to be held “ over 
running water” The living bird, and the cedar- 
wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, were then 
to be smeared in the blood of the one slain bird 
unmingled, with any thing else. And that smearing — 
for it could not possibly have been any thing more— 
is denoted by the word bapto. It follows, there¬ 
fore, that bapto, as the Greeks used it, does not 
always signify immersion. We agree, with Dr. 
Fuller, that “nothing can be more explicit than 
this chapter;’^ but we must also say that his 
version of it is unauthorized by the word of God. 
To use his own language, “that he designed any 
perversion of God’s word, we do not affirm. We' 
assail nobody’s sincerity; but his entire ignorance 
of the import of the chapter is inexcusable.” Yet 
these are the sort of arguments by which he would 
justify himself and others in the excommunication 
of nearly all Christendom itself AVill he note 
this among his “morsels from the Baltimore 
Tracts” ? 

In Joshua iii. 15, we have this record:—“And as 
they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, 
and the feet of the priests that bare the ark 
\_ebaphaesan'] dipped in the brim of the wat^r, . . . 
the waters which came down from above stood 
and rose up upon a heap, . . . and the priests that 
bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood 
firm on dry ground.” Here the mere touching of 
4 


88 


THE BAPTIST SYSTExM EXAMINED. 


the priests' feet the brim'^ of Jordan's out¬ 
spread waters, and from which touch those waters 
instantly shrank away so as to leave ^^dry ground” 
from shore to shore, is denoted by bapto. Not 
even the shadow of immersion is contained in the 
passage, much less a total immersion. 

Here, then, are clear and decisive instances of 
the use of bapto where the idea of submersion is 
foreign and excluded by the nature of things, and 
this in Greek the most closely related to that of 
the New Testament. We will give other instances 
to the same effect from classic usage. 

In Arrian’s History of Alexander the Great, we 
have this sentence:—“Nearchus relates that the 
Indians \baptontai] dye their beards." Certainly 
no one will undertake to say that these Indians 
immersed their beards. 

In JElian it is said of an old coxcomb that ^‘he 
endeavored to conceal the hoariness of his hair 
by [bapllae'] coloring it." Hid the old gentleman 
immerse his hair? 

In ^schylus we have the sentence, <^This 
garment, stained by the sword of iEgisthus." A 
sword certainly could not immerse a garment. A 
sword is not a fluid. 

In Hippocrates we read, when it drops upon the 
garments they \baptetai\ are dyed” Hr. Fuller 
says that bapto means to dye^ because dyeing is 
by immersion; but here we have the dyeing by 
dropping^ and the Baptist labors in vain to get 
immersion into the passage. 

Marcus Antoninus:—“The soul \baptetai\ is tine- 


THE MEANING OF THE WORD BAPTO. 


39 


tured by the thoughts.’^ Is the mind immersed 
by its thoughts? ^ 

Aristophanes speaks of Magnes as ^‘imitating the 
Lydians, and writing Psanes, and [baptomenos] 
smearing himself with frog-colored paints.” Lid 
he immerse himself in these washes or paints? 

Aristotle has the phrase, ^‘but, being pressed, it 
[paptaQ stains and colors the hands.” Are we to 
understand that the juice of an article when 
pressed in the fist immerses the fist? 

In a comic poem entitled ‘‘The Battle of the 
Progs and the Mice,” we have an account of the 
slaughter of one of the combatants; and the effect 
of his blood upon the lake, on the shore of which 
he fell, is denoted by bapto. We give Pope’s 
translation:— 

‘^Gasping he rolls: a purple stream of blood 
Diistaina the surface of the silver flobd.” 

Could a lake be immersed —totally immersed—in 
the blood of a dying frog or mouse? Hear Mr. 
Carson :—“To suppose there is here any extrava¬ 
gant allusion to the literal immersion or dipping 
of a lake is a monstrous perversion of taste.” (So 
we would think.) “The lake is said to be dyed, not 
dipped. There is in the word no reference to mode. 
What a monstrous paradox in rhetoric is the 
figuring of the dipping of a lake in the blood of a 
mouse! Never was there such a figure. The 
lake is not said to be dipped in blood, but to be dyed 
with blood.” (P. 48.) Very well said, and very 
much to our purpose. Here then, again, bapto can- 


40 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


not mean immersion, but signifies simply to tinge 
or color slightly, without reference to mode. 

There is also an instance in Hippocrates where 
hajpto is used with epi, upon. And, as it is sheer 
nonsense to talk of immersing upon, hapto from 
this must needs have in it a signification to 
embrace the application of the element to the sub¬ 
ject without immersion. 

We give but one other instance from the classics. 
Herodotus says, “The Egyptians consider the 
swine so polluted a beast, that, if any one in pass¬ 
ing touch a swine, he wdll go away and wash him¬ 
self with his very garments.’^ Here is hapto 
ebiployed to denote a religious washing for the 
purpose of cleansing from a defiling touch. What 
more can we need? All these instances present 
hapto completely stripped of every vestige of that 
mere modal signification which Dr. Fuller tells us 
it always has. 

Add yet a quotation or two from the Hew Tes¬ 
tament itself. 

In Matthew xxvi. 23, the Savior says, “He that 
\emhapsas'] dippeth his hand with me in the dish, 
the same shall betray me.” Suppose that the 
Savior and his disciples had before them a large 
vessel filled with liquid food,—for, if it was not 
liquid, all possibility of immersion is excluded : 
are we to be told that he and Judas both together, 
in the ordinary course of taking a meal, totally 
immersed their hands in it? The idea is prepos¬ 
terous. Here, then, hapto does not mean to im¬ 
merse ; and Dr. Fuller’s theorj^ has another contra¬ 
diction from the lips of Christ himself. 




THE MEANING OF THE WORD BAPTO. 


41 


In Revelation xix. 13, John says of Him who is 
faithful and true, “And he was clothed with a 
vesture \hebammenon] dipped in blood/’ The figure 
is that of a conqueror from the field of battle, with 
his clothing stained with the blood of his slain foes. 
The allusion is plainly to Isa. Ixiii. 2, 3:—“Where¬ 
fore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments 
like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden 
the wine-press alone; and of the people there was 
none with me; for I will tread them in mine anger, 
and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall 

be SPRINKLED UPON MY GARMENTS, and I wUl STAIN 

all my raiment” It is a remarkable and over¬ 
whelming fact in this connection that the two 
oldest and best translations of the Apocalypse— 
the Syriac and Ethiopic versions—render this 
bebammenon by terms denoting sprinkling. Wick- 
liffe translates it spreynt, or sprinkled. The Rheims 
version does the same. And so Origen, himself a 
Greek, when citing this passage, gives errantis- 
menon, Avhich means sprinkled, as the equivalent 
of bapto as here used. Does not this settle the 
question ? 

Now, with this half a score of lexicographers, 
and this list of authorities, with the most learned 
of the Baptist critics at its head, and these nume¬ 
rous instances, all testifying that bapto may be 
used without respect to mode, who can resist the 
conviction that it does not mean simply to immerse 
and nothing else? 

According to Hedericus, TJrsinus, Scapula, 
Sehrevelius, Donnegan, Dunbar, Grove, Watson/ 


42 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


and Herodotus, it means to washy —simply to 
wash. 

According to Hedericus, Coulon, Ursiniis, Sca¬ 
pula, Schrevelius, Donnegan, Pickering, Liddell 
and Scott, JOunbar, Grove, Carson, Watson, Wil¬ 
son, and others whom we have quoted, it means 
to stain and dye, even where the process is by 
dropping, pressing, smearing, and even, as in the 
case of the hair, by rubbing. 

According to Gases, Grove, Watson, the Sep- 
tuagint version of Daniel, and jEschjdus, it means 
to moisten, wet, or bedew, as by the distillation of the 
dews of the night, or by the flowing of blood upon 
the garments from wounds. 

And, according to Ursinus, Grove, Watson, 
Hippocrates, the Syriac and Ethiopic versions of 
the Apocalypse, and even Origen, it means to 
besprinkle; whilst Hedericus, Scapula, and 
Schrevelius also render it by lavo, which includes 
sprinkling and pouring, as well as any other appli¬ 
cation of water. 

He who can resist such evidence can resist 
demonstration itself Our case, therefore, as 
respects bapto, is made out. Our statement that 
it means to wash, cleanse, wet, moisten, bedew, 
stain, tinge, and dye, without regard to mode, and 
even to besprinkle, stands verified, firm, and im¬ 
movable. 

Bapto does not mean mere mode, —to immerse 
and nothing else. 


THE ADDITION OF ZO. 


43 


CHAPTER lY. 

THE ADDITION OF ZO ” 

The next step in our progress to ascertain the 
meaning of bajptizo will be to examine the force of 
the termination of or izOj when added to a primi¬ 
tive word. 

Upon this little particle there has been much 
said, and contradictory theories have been 
broached. ♦ 

Mr. Campbell takes the ground that the addition 
of ZO does not alter the sense of the primitive word 
to which it is affixed, but “indicates the rapidity 
with which the action is to be performed.’^ If this 
be a true position, baptizo (that is, bapto with the 
addition of zo) would signify a more rapid, and, 
consequently, only a more superficial, washing, 
cleansing, wetting, or sprinkling than that indi¬ 
cated by bapto. 

Others have thought that all verbs ending in zo 
are to be taken frequentative, indicating that the 
action is to be successively repeated. But this 
thcorj^ meets with but little favor even with Bap¬ 
tist critics. 

An extensively-received opinion is that verbs 
ending in zo are precisely of the same power and 
signification with the primitives from which they 


44 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


are formed, and that 20 or izo is added only for the 
sake of euphony. Thus, pnigo and pnigizo both 
mean to strangle or choke; euoreo and euoriazOj 
both, to be careless or unconcerned; Mao and MazOj 
both, to force or comjiel. Hence, Dr. Gale, one of 
the most learned Baptist authors, takes hapto and 
baptizo as exactly the same as to signification,’^ 
and holds it perfectly warrantable to argue ‘^pro¬ 
miscuously from both.” Mr. Carson says to this, 
“As far as respects an increase or diminution of 
the action of the verb, I perfectly agree with the 
writer. That one is more or less than the other, 
as to mode or frequency, is a perfectly groundless 
conceit.” (P. 19.) And Mr. Campbell, notwith¬ 
standing his doctrine of rapidity, agrees that “a 
change on the end of a word, when agreeable to 
the ear, soon loses its meaning by being extended 
to many words, for the sake of euphony. So of 
the termination zo.” If, then, we are to adopt this 
theory, baptizo means simply to wash, cleanse, wet, 
stain, sprinkle, &c., the same as bapto. 

But all this does not avail for Dr. Fuller. He 
must have a new theory; and a remarkable com¬ 
pound it is. “ In the Greek language,” says he, 
“the addition of zo rather enforces the primitive 
verb. It imparts a peculiar significancy, and 
seems generally to denote the transferring to 
another, or performing upon another, the thing 
designated. Thus,— bapto, to dip; baptizo, to make 
one dip; that is, to immerse” ! A clever bid, this, 
for Mr. Carson’s premium for nonsense. Zo en¬ 
forces the primitive verb, and transfers it to 
another! and performs it upon another!! and 


THE ADDITION OF ZO. 


45 


completes it in “ immersion and nothing else’^! 
Surely this zo is a wonderful particle in Dr. Fuller’s 
estimation. But see his illustrations. Zo rather 
enforces, transfers, performs upon another, the 
primitive verb; thus,— sophos, wise; sophizo, to 
make wise.” Sophos a verb! enforced, transferred, 
performed upon another, by the addition of zo !! 
What an interpreter to show the meaning of a 
Greek word which, as he teaches, involves the 
Christian character and eternal hopes of all Chris¬ 
tendom itself! Sophos is an adjective, which admits 
of no performance, (at least in this instance it has 
not been performed upon the doctor,) whilst bapto 
and baptizo are both verbs. The analogy which he 
is aiming at, to be complete, must therefore be 
confined to verbs. But whether we take radical 
verbs and their derivatives, or take nouns, ad¬ 
jectives, or any other parts of speech, and the 
verbs ending in zo derived from or related to them, 
we shall find no foundation for the mysterious 
force which the doctor is pleased to assign to the 
affix of zo, concerning which he modestly tells us 
that great ‘^authors only betray their innocence 
of the Greek language” ! 

Let us look at a few cases:— 

1. Nouns:— phos, light; photizo, to enlighten, or 
put in process of becoming illuminated: eunouchos, a 
eunuch; eunouchizo, to make a eunuch, or to put in 
process of becoming a eunuch: gunce, genitive 
gunaikos, a woman; gxinaikizo, to render womanish, 
or to put in process of becoming like a woman: 
doxa, glory; doxazo, to glorify, or put in process 
of becoming glorious: paraskeua, a state of pre- 


46 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


paration; paraskeuazOj to make preparation, or to 
pnt in process of becoming prepared. 

2. Adjectives:— katharos, clean; katharizo, to 
cleanse, or put in process of becoming clean or 
pure: phoinios, red as blood; phoinizOj to redden, 
or put in process of becoming red. 

3. Verbs, (and here the cases are perfectly ana¬ 
logous to bapto, haftizo:') — melaneo^ to be black; 
melanizo, to be blackish, or in a condition verging 
towards black: plouteo^ to be rich; ploutizo, to 
enrich, or put in process of becoming rich : deipneo, 
to sup; deipnizo, to make ready to sup: phluo, to 
overflow, as boiling water escaping from a kettle; 
phluzOj to bubble up so as to tend towards an over¬ 
flow. 

From these examples, and many others that 
might easily be given, it would appear that the 
addition of zo or izo in Greek corresponds to our 
English terminations ize and ish, which have most 
likely taken their origin from it; as, fertile, fer¬ 
tilize; blue, bluish, &c. If so, then zo has only 
a preparative relation to the primitive word to 
which it is affixed, and indicates a diminution of 
its force. That which is blackish is not yet black. 
He who is being enriched is not yet rich. The 
preparation for a supper is not yet supping. The 
water that bubbles up as if it would overflow is 
not necessarily overflowing. He who is rendered 
womanish is not yet a woman. So then baptizo is 
not quite a bapto, but only something approxi¬ 
mating to it. 

Eut we must not forget Hr. Fuller’s examples:— 

Oikeo, to dwell; oikizo, to make one dwell. So- 


THE ADDITION OP ZO. 


47 


phoSy wise; sophizo, to make wise. Sophroneo. to 
be of a sound mind; sophronizo, to make one of a 
sound mind. And, just so, bapto, to dip; baptizOy 
to make one dip,—that is, to immerse.^' 

It would be interesting to know how the phrase 
make one dip’’ can be taken here as synony¬ 
mous with the word “ immerse.” If Dr. Fuller’s 
theory concerning zo means any thing, it assigns 
it a causative force the stress of which falls upon 
the actor and not upon the subject. “To make 
one dip” is to cause one to do a dipping. It sets 
one to the performance of the act, but it does not 
intensify the dipping, or transmute it into an im¬ 
mersion. 

It is' also a matter of reasonable curiosity where 
Dr. Fuller obtained the significations which ho 
assigns to the words he gives as his illustrations. 
If the reader will open some standard Greek lexi¬ 
con, he will find that oikeo means to inhabit, and 
oikizOy to render habitable, or to put in process 
of becoming inhabited. Sophos means skilful; 
sophizOy to render skilful, or to put in process of 
becoming skilful. Sophroneo means to be of a 
sound mind, prudent, or discreet; sophronizoy to 
render prudent, or to put in process (as by chas¬ 
tisement and training) of becoming prudent or 
discreet. Why, the doctor’s own examples con¬ 
fute him! In every instance which he has pro¬ 
duced the verb with zo affixed falls short of what is 
denoted by the primitive word,—at any rate, does 
not exceed it. 

But, says Dr. Fuller, “ Dr. Person, the first Greek 
scholar England has ever producedj regarded bap- 


48 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


tizo as more emphatical than bapto/^ (p. 13.) Now, 
England had Greek scholars before she had Dr. 
Person, though she may never have had any 
superior to him in Greek learning. But how does 
Br. Fuller know that such was Porson’s opinion? 
Not from any thing which that noted scholar has 
written; but from an obscure tradition that he 
once said so, and that tradition given by an author 
who mentions it only to question it! The account 

is, that a certain Mr. Newman accompanied an 
acquaintance in a friendly call upon Br. Person 
just a few months before his death; that some¬ 
thing was said in that interview about Greek; 
that Mr. Newman, after Br. Person’s death, wrote 
a letter to some unknown individual, which letter, 
in some unknown way, was j)ut into the hands 
of Mr. Carson, who speaks of it in his book on 
baptism, whence Br. Fuller derived it; and that it is 
said, in said letter, that Br. Person said, if there 
be a difference [between haptizo and bapto] he 
should take the former to be the strongest.” 

o 

This is the whole story. Of what account is it? 
Not a judge in the land would admit it as evidence 
even in a cause involving no more than dollars 
and cents; and shall it be admitted on a question 
involving eternal consequences ? Hovrever, if 
Br. Fuller’s case needs it, let him have it. It is 
enough for us that Mr. Carson, from whom he gets 

it, views it with suspicion, disputes the position 
which it is now quoted to sustain, and lays down 
the doctrine in its very face that ^‘the derivative 
cannot go beyond its primitive” (p. 23.) At best, 
the alleged opinion of Porson is given hypotheti- 


THE ADDITION OF ZO- 


49 


eally. He says, << If there be a difference/^ The 
very language intimates doubt as to whether hap- 
tizo does not mean just the same 2 i^bapto. And, if 
Dr. Person could not satisfy himself of any “ pecu¬ 
liar significaney*’ in zo, we need fear nothing dis¬ 
astrous to our argument from that quarter. 

But if Dr. Fuller’s theory concerning zo, as he 
has defined it, were even true, it can prove no¬ 
thing to fix immersion upon baptizo as its exclusive 
meaning. He says that it “enforces,^’ ^^trans¬ 
fers/’ performs upon another,” what the primi¬ 
tive verb signifies. The meaning must therefore, 
on his own showing, be in the primitive verb be¬ 
fore in can be transfen*ed or enforced; and it 
must enforce and transfer at the same time the 
whole meaning of the primitive verb. If the 
primitive verb means to sprinkle as well as dip^ to 
wash^ loet, moisten j and bedew as well as to immerse^ 
the addition of zo must perform the same office for 
the one as for the other. All this is plain and 
clear, although Dr. Fuller does not seem to have 
observed it. 

Now, we have -shown from the Septuagint ver¬ 
sion of Daniel that there is a hapto wiiich signifies 
the gentle moistening of an exposed body by the 
ffilling dew. We have shown from the same ver¬ 
sion of Leviticus that there is a hapto which 
denotes the smearing of a living bird, scarlet, and 
hyssop in the blood of one bird. We have shown 
from Arrian and ^lian that there is a bapto which 
designates the coloring of the hair. We have 
shown from jFschylus and Hippocrates that there 
IS a bapto which expresses the staining of a gar- 
5 


50 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


ment by oozing blood or a dropping liquid. Wo 
have shown from the jjoem ascribed to Homer 
that there is a hapto which signifies the slight 
tinging of a lake by the blood of a frog or mouse; 
and we have shown from the Apocalypse that 
there is a bapto which denotes the blood-stains 
upon the garments of a conquering warrior. We 
have also produced a half-score of the best lexicog¬ 
raphers and the statements of other learned 
men, and the admission of Carson himself, in 
support of the fact that these are, and have been 
for ages, among the accepted and acknowledged 
significations of bapto. Let Dr. Fuller, then, apply 
zos by the cart-load, and transfer, enforce, and 
perform upon another what is expressed in the 
primitive verb, until the day of doom, still baptizo 
refuses to be tied down to ‘^immersion and no¬ 
thing else.’^ 

And when w^e come to apply what is further in 
evidence,— that there are multitudes of Greek 
verbs ending in zo which denote acts or conditions 
only slightly tending or imperfectly approxi¬ 
mating to the thing expressed in the primitive 
word,— the case becomes inevitable and certain 
that there is nothing in the mere addition of zo to 
confine the import of baptizo exclusively to im¬ 
mersion. 

Let the reader now cast his thoughts back over 
the ground which we have traversed, and ask 
himself whether he can find room for the feeblest 
probability that Christ’s command to baptize is 
‘‘a command to immerse and nothing else”? 
Having complied with this request, and answered 




. A'*.-Sfc'. ' 




THE QUESTION OP DIVERS SIGNIFICATIONS. 51 

this question, the way is open to pursue our 
doctor’s argument,’^— 

“ the rarest argument of wonder 
That hath shot out in our later times.” 


CHAPTEE Y. 

THE QUESTION OP DIVERS SIGNIFICATIONS. 

For all that we have thus far learned, the word 
haptizo, which is the word in dispute in this con¬ 
troversy, so far from meaning total immersion and 
nothing else, means also to wash, cleanse, wet, 
moisten, bedew, and even to sprinkle. We have 
established all these meanings of bapto. We have 
shown that there is nothing in the addition of zo 
or izo to augment these meanings We have also 
shown that there are many Greek verbs, of which 
haptizo may be one, which are so modified, limited, 
and diminished by the addition of zo as to indicate 
an act or condition only approximating to that 
signified in the primitive word. It hence follows 
that haptizo means about the same as bapto; that, 
as bapto means to wash, cleanse, wet, moisten, and 
bedew, so haptizo means to wash, cleanse, wet, 
moisten, and bedew, or something approximative 
to what these words import. 

But Dr. Fuller insists that haptizo certainly does 
mean immersion, and that a word cannot have more 



THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


^9 

than one meaning. The assertion/^ says he, 
‘‘that baptize has three different meanings only 
proves how strangely controversy can blind the 
mind to the plainest things. To say that a word 
means three distinct things is to say that it means 
neither of them. And this is true of the most 
general words. The puerilities of which men are 
guilty on this plain matter are surprising.” (P. 14.) 

A “plain matter” it certainly is; and how any 
sane, fair man can thus contradict so plain a 
matter as that a word may have more than one 
signification, we cannot understand. Dr. Fuller 
knows—he must know—he cannot read ten lines 
in any dictionary in any language without having 
the testimony before him—that there are words 
every one of which has various shades of significa¬ 
tion and very different meanings. He has told us 
that “no one ought to substitute for proof his own 
assertion.” And yet we have here, as an essential 
link in his “ argument,” nothing but assertion,— 
assertion unaccompanied with the merest shadow 
of proof, and as far from truth as heaven is from 
earth. It seems like pedantry and puerility to 
reply to an error so palpable and egregious as that 
which he has here broached. But we are some¬ 
times called on to prove that two and two make 
four. ^Ye will therefore proceed to show by 
abundant evidence that it is one of the commonest 
things in language for a word to be used in dif¬ 
ferent and even opposite meanings. 

We have before us a book by Eoget, called 
“ Thesaurus of English Words” edited by Dr. Bar- 
nas Sears, who commends it as “justly held in 


THE QUESTION OF DIVERS SIGNIFICATIONS. 53 

high estimation both in England and America.^^ 
In this book, Roget says, ‘‘The most cursory 
glance over the pages of a dictionary will show 
that a great number of words are used in various 
senses, sometimes distinguished by slight shades of 
dilference, but often diverging widely from theii\ 
primary signification, and even, in some cases, 
bearing no perceptible relation. It may even 
happen that the very same word has two signifi¬ 
cations quite opposite to one another.” (P. 23.) 
This author refers for examples to such words as 
impugn, which sometimes means to assail and 
sometimes to defend; ravel, sometimes to entangle, 
sometimes to disentangle; priceless, invaluable, or 
of no value; nervous, strong, or at other times 
weak or feeble. Professor SluarPs translation of 
Ernesti says that “usage has gradually assigned 
many meanings to the same word” And Professor 
Curtis, a Baptist, in his recent book in favor of 
“Baptist principles,” says, Almost every word has 
several significations,” (p. 145.) And all this is true 
of words in all languages. 

In Hebrew, bara means to create, to fatten, and 
to cut otf,—three ditferent significations; and barak 
means both to bless and to curse. 

In Greek, lego means to speak, to choose, to 
reckon up, and to lie down to rest,—at least three 
unrelated things; eirgo means both to include and 
to exclude; and ballo, according to Schrevelius, has 
seventeen meanings. 

In Arabic, faraka means to separate, withdraw, 
lay open, cast out, immerse,—not less than four 
things. 

5 ’^ 


54 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


The Eussian word uherayu means to put in 
order, mow, reap, and to dress the hair,—three or 
more diiferent significations. 

The Chaldee word barak means to bless, salute, 
bend the knee, dig, plow, and to set slips for pro¬ 
pagation,—certainly very diverse operations. 

The Italian word parare means to prepare, gar¬ 
nish, parry, repair, and to stop a horse,—five 
significations. 

The Dutch word heeten means to heat, to name, 
and to command,—certainly very different things. 

The German word vermessen means to measure, 
to measure wrong, to dare, to arrogate, to swear 
or protest with solemn asseverations, and to profess 
with high and boasting words. What diversity 
of import! 

The Spanish word parar means to prepare, to 
stop, detain, prevent, to end, to treat or use ill, 
and to stake at cards,—at least five diverse things. 

The Latin euro means to take care of, to provide, 
to refresh one’s self with meat, to cook meat, to 
bring to pass, to command, to pay homage to, to 
cure, to expiate or atone. What variety! 

In French, tirer means to draw, to free or rid 
from, to reap, to deduce, to extract, to stretch, 
and to shoot; and louer means to hire, to lease, to 
praise, to applaud,—all things very different. 

And in English spring means a leap, a part of a 
watch, one of the seasons, and a fountain of 
water,—four wholly different things; cleave means 
to adhere and to divide; and Webster assigns to 
the word turn thirty transitive and twenty in¬ 
transitive significations! 


THE QUESTION OP DIVERS SIGNIFICATIONS. 55 

Multitudes of other words, with similar diversity 
of signification belonging to each, might be pro¬ 
duced with the greatest case. And yet, according 
to Dr. Fuller, it is ‘^puerility” and “folly’' to assert 
that a word can have more than one meaning! 
Wondrous linguistic philosopher I Is it not amazing 
that any one should be so blind and reckless “in a 
matter of so much moment as obedience to Jesus 
Christ”? No, no, Dr. Fuller; whatever may be 
your d'priori impressions, and however much your 
cause may demand j^our extraordinary announce¬ 
ment to the contrar}^ words may and do have 
various and even opposite meanings. By denying 
this, you make war upon the plainest truth, con¬ 
tradict the sternest facts, and put yourself in a 
position before the world which calls for pity. 
And, if it is on this that you rely to confine the 
meaning of baptizo to total immersion, your cause 
is gone be}-ond recovery. 

But this is not the end of our doctor’s trimming 
up of all words to one signification. He had some 
words before him, when he wrote this part of his 
book, which so palpably mean different things, 
that he must needs resort to some further and 
equally extraordinary invention to meet the diffi¬ 
culty. “We are referred,” says he, “to the word 
spring, as meaning a leap, and a part of a watch, 
and one of the seasons, and a fountain of water. 
A schoolboy, however, sees that these are different 
words, though similarly spelt.” (P. 14.) Hear, ye 
sages, and learn wisdom! Words “similarly 
spelt,” composed of exactly the same letters, pro¬ 
nounced the same, belonging to the same language, 


5G 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


identical in every mark they bear, yet altogether 
‘‘diiferent,'^ and schoolboy sees it'M! Same¬ 
ness, then, is no more sameness; and the four 
words spring, spring, spring, and spring are hardly 
to be recognized any more as members of the 
same family, much less to be confounded as one, 
if ever Mm would understand the commands of 
Jesus, or be sure that we have obeyed them! 
But, as our author remarks, it “only proves how 
strangely controversy can blind the mind to the 
plainest things/^ 

Suppose, however, that it vmre true, that words 
oidhographically alike are ditferent words: ‘will 
that fix immersion as the meaning of the haptizo 
used in the Savior’s command? Not at all. It 
only places the question one remove further back. 
Admit that Dr. Fuller is right in this particular, 
it then devolves upon him to prove that this is the 
haptizo which means to immerse, and not one of 
those other haptizos which mean to ivash, cleanse, 
purify, wet, moisten, and bedew. Does he prove 
tin's? No. Does he attempt to prove it? No. 
All he has to say upon the subject is, “a school¬ 
boy sees it;” vdien it is certain that no schoolboy 
or school7U^?«, from the time of the institution of 
schools, ever did or ever vdll see it. 

Thus far, then, our position remains firm, that 
haptizo, as hapto, so far from meaning immersion 
only, means also to wash cleanse, wet, moisten, 
hedeiv. 


BAPTIZO—THE LEXICONS. 


57 


CHAPTER yi. 

BAPTIZO—THE LEXICONS. 

We come now to the word haptizo itself. Mr. 
Carson maintains that “it always signifies to dip,— 
never expressing any thing but mode.'^ Dr. Fuller 
takes much the same ground. Baptizo” says he, 
“always denotes a total immersion. . . . The word, 
I repeat it, means nothing but imnierse. . . . The 
word baptizo has but one meaning, and always 
signifies imnierse.” (Pp. 19, 45.) This is the common 
Baptist doctrine from Dan to Beersheba. If this 
fails, one great branch of their system—the right 
arm of their strength—is gone. 

We have already done something towards ascer¬ 
taining what is the real meaning of haptizo. It 
has been shown that bapto means ^cashing, cleansing^ 
wetting, and moistening, as well as immersion; that 
the addition of zo or izo cannot augment, but 
rather diminishes, the import of the word to which 
it is affixed; and hence that bapto with zo, or 
baptizo, must also mean to wet, ivash, cleanse, and 
moisten, whether by the application of the object 
to the element or by the application of the ele¬ 
ment to the object. The reader is therefore in a 
position to anticipate what we are about to bring 
forward in the sequel. We now engage to pr*^ 


58 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


duce proof upon proof, the clearest and the most 
invincible, and to show and establish, against Mr. 
Carson, Dr. Fuller, Mr. Campbell, and the whole 
tribe of Baptists, that such is the true scope and 
meaning of the word baptizo. 

Our first appeal is to the lexicographers. 

It is a little surprising that Dr. Fuller has 
wholly omitted and studiously avoided this source 
of testimony. Campbell concedes that the lexi¬ 
cographers are “the most learned and most compe¬ 
tent witnesses in the case in the world.’^ And it is 
evident, upon the very first thought, that such is 
the fact. The only reason \vq can see why Dr. 
Fuller has so strangely passed b^^ these “most com¬ 
petent witnesses in the world” is, that he felt his 
cause in peril and hopeless in case their testimony 
should be taken. Though he has not said in words, 
he has said in the manner in which he has con¬ 
ducted his argument, as his great light of Tubber- 
more said before him, ‘‘7 have all the lexicogra¬ 
phers and commentators against we.”* (See Carson 
on Baptism, p. 55.) And yet Carson admits “that 
lexicons are an authority. Indeed,” says he, “I 
should consider it the most unreasonable skepti- 


^ Dr. Fuller says (p. 18) that people garble and misrepresent Car- 
son’s language when they so quote him. We therefore give the 
entire pass.age, that our readers may judge for themselves. Carson 
says, ‘‘My position is, that baptizo always signifies to dip,—never 
expressing any thing but mode. Now, ns I have all the lexicogra¬ 
phers and commentators against me in this opinion, it will be necessary 
to say a word or two with respect to the authority of lexicons. 
Many will be startled at the idea of refusing to submit to the unani¬ 
mous authority of lexicons, os an instance of the basest skepticism.” 




BAPTi:4D—THE LEXICONS. 


59 


cism to deny that a word has a meaning which 
all lexicons give as a primary meaning/^ (p. 56.) 
But, if it is “unreasonable skepticism’^ to rule out 
the testimony of lexicographers on one meaning 
of a word, how can it be less reprehensible to rule 
out their testimony as to other meanings? We 
must take their whole testimony or none; else we 
contradict one of the plainest laws of evidence, 
which Dr. Fuller can hardly be supposed to have 
forgotten. We certainly do most strenuously pro¬ 
test against this partial and unwarrantable dealing 
wdth “the most competent witnesses in the world” 
upon a matter so momentous as obedience to 
Christ. We therefore proceed to take the testi¬ 
mony of the lexicograjihers. 

The first we produce is Scapula, who published 
his Greek Lexicon almost three hundred years 
ago. He defines ^‘baptizo, mergo, seu immergo; 
item submerge, obruo aqua; item abluo, lavo, 
(Mark vii., Luke xi.;)” which, being interpreted, 
means “to dip, or to immerse; also to submerge, to 
overwhelm with water; also, to cleanse, to wash” 
He also defines baptismos, mersio, lotio, ablutio,— 
“dipping, washing, cleansing” 

2. Henry Stephens, (died 1598,) pronounced one 
of the best Grecians of his time, defines “ baptize, 
mergo, seu immergo, submerge, obruo aqua; abluo, 
lavo;” to dip, or immerse, submerge, overwhelm 
with water; to cleanse, to wash. 

3. Cornelius Schrevelius, a laborious critic, (died 
1667,) defines baptize, mergo, abluo, lavo;” to 
dip, to cleanse, to wash. 

4. Robertson’s Thesaurus, one of the most accu- 


60 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

rate of dictionaries, printed 1676, defines baptizo 
by only two words, mergo and lavo; to dip, to wash. 

5. John G. Suicer, in his Thesaurus, published 
1683, defines ‘‘ baptizo, mergo, immergo, submergo, 
aqua obruo; abluo, lavo/’ to dip, immerse, sub¬ 
merge, overwhelm with water; to cleanse, to wash. 

6. Hedericus, whose Lexicon was first published 
in 1722, gives baptizo, mergo, immergo, aqua 
obruo; abluo, lavo; baptizo, significatu sacro /’ to 
dip, immerse, overwhelm with water; to cleanse, to 
wash; to baptize in a sacred sense. 

7. Schcetgen, in his Lexicon, 1765, gives ‘^baptizo, 
mergo, immergo/’ to dip, to immerse; ^‘in Mark 
and Luke, abluo, lavo; largiter profundo;” to 
cleanse, to wash ; to pour profusely upon. 

8. Bretschneider, considered one of the most 
thorough critics on the New Testament, defines 

baptizo, proprise, sepius intingo, sepius lavo; 
deinde lavo, abluo simplicitur; medium, etc., lavo 
me, abluo me;” properly, often to dip into, often to 
wash; then to wash, simply to cleanse; in the middle 
voice, I wash or cleanse myself. 

9. The Greek Clavis of Stokius, published more 
than one hundred years ago, defines baptizo, pro- 
prie, est immergere ac intiugere in aquam; tropice, 
per metalepsin, est lavire, abluere;” properly, it is 
to immerse or dip into water; tropically, by meta- 
lepsis, to wash, to cleanse. And, lest an improper 
impression should here be made by the circum¬ 
stance that Stokius classes wash and cleanse among 
the tropical meanings of baptizo, we will simply 
refer to the fact that Ernesti states it as one of the 
commonest things in language for those meanings 


BAPTIZO-THE LEXICONS. 


61 


of words which were originally only secondary 
and tropical to become the proper and best-under¬ 
stood meanings. And if we were to admit that, 
strictly and technically, baptizo only secondarily 
means to wash and cleanse, Mr. Carson is authority 
that secondary meanings are as literal as the 
primary meaning,” (p. 46,) and hence necessarily 
as much a part of the proper import of a word as 
any meaning can be. 

10. Schleusner, a learned theologian and critic, 
gives “ baptizo, proprie, immergo ac intingo, in 
aquam mergo. In hoc autem significatione nun- 
quain in Nov. Test., sed, abluo, lavo, aqua purgo;” 
properly, to immerse as to dye, to dip into water. 
In this sense, however, it is never used in the New 
Testament, but in the sense to cleanse, to wash, to 
purify with water. 

11. Parkhurst enumerates dip and immerse among 
his definitions of baptizo, but, with Schleusner, 
holds that ^‘in the New Testament it occurs not 
strictly in this sense, unless so far as this is 
included in washmg.” He defines it, “ to immerse 
or wash with water in token of purification.''’ 

12. Robinson gives its classic use in the sense of 
dip, immerse, sink, &c.; but, as a New Testament 
word, he confines its meaning to washing, cleansing, 
bathing, and the performance of ablution. 

13. Ewing's Greek Lexicon thus classifies its 
meanings :—“1. I plunge or sink completely under 
water. 2. I cover partially with water. 3. I over¬ 
whelm or cover with water by rushing, flowing, or 
pouring upon. 4. I drench or impregnate with 
liquor by affusion; I pour abundantly upon, so as 


C2 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


to wet thoroughly; I infuse. 5. I oppress or over¬ 
whelm by bringing burdens, afflictions, or distress 
upon. 6 . / wa^hj in general. 7. I wash for the 
special purpose of symbolical, ritual, or ceremonial 
purification. 8. I administer the ordinance of 
Christian baptism; I baptize.^^ 

14. Wahl defines it, ^‘eirst, to wash, to perform 
ablution, to cleanse; secondly, to immerse,^’ &c. 

15. Greenfield defines its scriptural signification, 
^^0 wash, to perform ablution, cleanse,” &c. 

16. Pickering renders it, ‘Ho dip, to immerse, to 
sink, to overwhelm, to wet, to wash, to cleanse.” 

17. Dunbar, “to dip, to immerse, to sink, to 
soak, to wash.’' 

18. Liddell and Scott, “to dip repeatedly, to dip 
under, to bathe, to wet, to pour upon, to drench, to 
overwhelm.”—(Original Edition.) 

19. Flacius, (Clavis Scripturse,) “immergo, abluo, 
lavo;” to immerse, to cleanse, to wash. 

20. Grove, “ to dip, immerse, wash, cleanse, purify, 
depress, humble, overwhelm, to wash one's self, to 
bathe.” 

It cannot be necessary to call any more wit¬ 
nesses of this class. We have others within reach; 
but twenty of the great masters of Greek lexi¬ 
cography, all unanimously testifying to precisely 
the same things, must be sufficient to settle the 
matter so far as respects the dictionaries. 

Let us then endeavor to realize, digest, and 
bring fully before our minds what these witnesses 
have deposed. 

In the first place, every man of them, from first 
to last, without the least faltering, hesitation, or 


BAPTIZO-THE LEXICONS. 


63 


equivocation, declares and records that the general 
signification of loetting, moistening, or washing, no 
matter how accomplished, is included in the word 
baptizo. This is one point which stands out against 
the Baptist world like a continent against the’sea. 
They may rave and labor and dash upon it with 
all their strength, but they can neither shake nor 
surmount it. There it is. No floods can destroy 
it. No hand can blot it out. 

In the second place, six or eight of these wit¬ 
nesses clearly assert that, in the New Testament, 
the general signification of wetting, moistening, 
purifying, or washing, no matter how accom¬ 
plished, is the most inherent, original, and primary 
meaning of baptizo. Here, again, is a mountain of 
strength for our cause. 

In the third place, a number of these witnesses, 
including Eobertson, Schrevelius, Bretschneider, 
do not give the distinctive idea of a total immersion 
as at all entering into the meaning of baptizo. 
Either, then, these men missed the meaning of this 
word altogether,, or it means something else than 
a mere modal and entire immersion. There is no 
escape from this alternative. 

In the fourth place, nearly one-half of those 
witnesses who give immersion as one of the signi¬ 
fications of baptizo assign it only the second place, 
and give dip as a more literal and inherent meaning 
of this word. Dip may sometimes mean a total 
immersion, but this is not the burden of its import. 
Webster gives “to baptize by immersion” as its 
sixth and remotest signification. A sudden, quick, 
partial touching to a fluid is its most direct and 


64 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


central meaning. A swallow sporting over a lake, 
and now and then touching his soft breast to its 
placid surface, dips, but is not immersed. A writer 
dips his pen in the ink, but he does not totally 
immerse it; he only touches the fluid with its 
extreme points, ^^ay, dip sometimes means simply 
to wet or moisten. Johnson and Webster both give 
these words as definitions of dip. Milton says, 

“ a cold shuddering dew 
Dips me all over.” 

He meant, of course, nothing more than being 
moistened or wetted by the dew. Mr. Carson also 
agrees that it would be not only correct, but 
beautiful and elegant, to say of a man who had 
been caught in a shower of rain, he got a dipping, 
(p. 88.) And, Mmergo and dip meant the same total 
modal immersion signified by immergo and immerse, 
it would be difficult to understand why these 
learned men should give these words as significant 
of a still further meaning. If dip, then, is the most 
inherent and original sense of baptize, and if the 
main stress of the word dip runs on mere partial 
submersions, gentle or quick contacts with a fluid, 
wettings and moistenings as from dew or falling 
rain, we here spring a mine under the Baptist 
theory which carries it into absolute ruin. 

In the fifth place, all those witnesses who speak 
of the specific New Testament or scriptural use of 
the word baptizo to a man give to it the general 
signification of wetting, washing, purifying, or 
cleansing, without regard to mode. Scapula refers 
to Mark and Luke, and gives it abluo, lavo,—to 
cleanse, to wash. Stephens follows with the same. 


BAPTTZO—THE LEXICONS. 


65 


Bretsehneider gives it, often to dip, often to wash; 
then simply to wash, cleanse.” Stokius gives the 
sacred sense to ‘^wash and cleanse.” Schleusner 
and Parkhurst say that it does not occur in the 
New Testament strictly in the sense of immerse, 
except so far as this is included in washing. Robin¬ 
son gives its scriptural meaning, “to wash, to 
cleanse by washing.” Flacius gives oMuo, lavo ,— 
to cleanse, to wash. And Ewing, Schoetgen, Green¬ 
field, and all, take the same ground and state the 
same thing. Whatever, then, may be the meaning 
of this word in the old classic Greek authors, these 
men, with one accord, assert that in the New Testa¬ 
ment, the only book we are concerned with in this 
controversy, it means to wash, cleanse, purify, in 
any way, without regard to the particular mode 
contended for by our Baptist friends. 

We will yet call to the stand a few native Greek 
lexicographers to testify on this subject. These 
constitute a class of witnesses to whom Baptists 
are very fond of referring. They tell us that 
“the native Greeks must understand their own 
language better than foreigners;” and that “in 
this case the Greeks are unexceptionable guides.” 
Dr. Fuller asks, “Is the Greek language now 
spoken by any nation? If it be, why not refer 
the point to them, since they must know what is the 
meaning of the word?” (P. 87.) Yery well: we will 
go to the native Greeks, and agree to bind our¬ 
selves by the result. Will our Baptist friends be 
honest, and bind themselves to the decision of their 
“ unexceptionable guides” ? If not, let them cease 
t\\QiY palaver about native Greeks. 


66 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


1. The first of the native Greek lexicographers 
is Hesychius, who lived in the fourth century. He 
gives only bapto, in which he includes baptizo; and 
the word by which he defines its meaning is antleo, 
—to draw, or pump, or pour out water. This is his 
whole definition of bapto and its derivatives. Alas! 
what has become of “ total immersion and nothing 
else’^ ? 

2. Next in order comes Suidas, a man whose 
mother-tongue was Greek, and who ^^must have 
known what is the meaning of the word.^’ He 
lived in the ninth or tenth century. His definition 
of baptizo is given in the word pluno, —in Latin, 
madefacio, lavo, abluo, pur go, mundo,—to wet, to lave, 
to wash, to cleanse, to purify. Where is dip, plunge, 
sink, immerse? 

3. But these are old writers: perhaps the present 
Greeks understand their own language better than 
their fathers. We descend, then, to the nineteenth 
century, at the beginning of which we find a large 
and complete lexicon, compiled with great labor 
and pains by the learned Gases, a native Greek, 
whose valuable work holds somewhat the same 
relation to the Greek language wdiich Webster’s 
Lictionary does to the language of the United 
States. “ It is generally used by native Greeks,” 
says Chapin. We turn to baptizo, and read his 
definition of it. It is in these words : brecho, louo, 
antleo,—to wet, moisten, or bedew; to wash, lave, or 
bathe; to draw, pump, or pour out water. This is the 
whole of it. Nor a word about dip, immerse, 

PLUNGE, OR SINK IS TO BE FOUND IN THE DEFINITION. 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS. 67 

Our case, then, is made out. The native Greeks 
have spoken, and their words are all for us. 

\Yith such results following an examination of 
the lexicographers, we need not much wonder that 
Dr. Fuller so carefully avoided them in his book, 
or that Mr. Carson began to be troubled with fears 
of being charged with startling and base skep¬ 
ticism when he undertook to maintain that baptizo 
means nothing but a modal and total immersion. 
Ue did but utter the truth when he said, “ I have 
all the lexicographers and commentators against 
me in this opinion.’^ 

But we have other and equally interesting details 
awaiting our attention. 


CHAPTEE YII. 

BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS. 

The overwhelming odds against the theory of 
our Baptist friends, presented in our examinations 
thus far, may render the reader a little curious to 
know upon wdiat they do rely in the much ado 
they make about immersion as the only baptism. 
The best of their critics admits that the best and 
most competent witnesses on this subject in the 
world—the lexicographers—are against them. But 
he denies that the lexicons are “an ultimate au¬ 
thority,” and appeals from them to quotations from 
the Greek writers containing the word baptizo. 



68 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Quite a number of such quotations have been col¬ 
lected by the industry of writers on the subject, 
from which Dr. Fuller has culled a parcel wdiich 
" he presents as the foundation on which he rests for 
his doctrine concerning the meaning of the word 
in question. He says he takes them random’* 
Mr. Carson had said the same thing in presenting 
the same passages before. How many more have 
expressed themselves in the same way, over the 
same passages, we cannot say. But it is singular 
to see these studied insinuations that no great 
care has been exercised to bring out the utmost 
strength of the case. It seems to say that, after 
all their Greek explorations, these writers are by 
no means satisfied that they have made good their 
assertions. We shall see presently that their 
citations are “random’^ enough, especially when 
viewed as the last grand fortress upon which the 
fate of the Baptist theory is staked. 

The observations which we have to make upon 
these cited passages are to this effect:—1. That, 
even as far as they go, they do not show baptizo in 
the one sense of‘‘immerse and nothing else.’^ 2. 
That, if they did, they would prove no more than 
that this is one of the acceptations in which this 
word has. been used by certain writers. 3. That, 
if they were even competent to settle the classic 
Greek use of the word in question, they still 
cannot prove its import in the Hew Testament, 
which was not written in classic Greek; and, 4. 
That there are instances even of classic usage in 
which baptizo must be assigned a meaning at vari¬ 
ance with the Baptist theory. 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS 


69 


If we can make these points clear, we have 
taken the citadel, in which the Baptists have 
lodged their strongest forces, and in which their 
greatest confidence reposes. Let us see, then, 
what is to be said. 

I. Do the instances of the use of baptizo, to which 
Dr. Fuller refers, give to that word the uniform 
sense of total immersion? Do they sustain the 
idea that baj^tism is the application of the subject 
to the water? We say the}^ do not. 

In his first quotation, baptizo is used to denote 
the setting of the sun behind the western ocean. 
Is this a case of immersion? Then for the candi¬ 
date to pass behind the cistern of baptismal water 
is as much an immersion as to go into the cistern 
and be covered up by the water in actual contact 
with his person. The sun surely never was in 
contact with the waters of the sea. 

The second we once thought a case of genuine 
immersion, and so stated in the first edition of this 
book; but, having since seen the original, we are 
satisfied that the idea of immersion is not in the 
passage. Dr. Fuller gives only a translation, the 
same as that given by Carson, who borrowed it 
from Gale. This current Baptist version reads 
thus:—“ When a piece of iron is taken red-hot 
from the fire, and is dipped (baptized) in water, the 
heat, being quenched by the peculiar nature of the 
water, ceases.’' This, to say the least, is a forced 
and incorrect translation; and that, too, in the very 
point in question. We have the original before us, 
and know what we are saying. The right trans- 


70 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


lation is this:—For a mass of iron, heated to 
redness, being drawn out by the smiths, is baptized 
WITH water, and that which was fieiy by its own 
nature, being quenched with water, ceases to be 
so.” Hudati haptizetaV does not mean dipped in 
water,” as our Bajitist doctors tell us. Hudati here 
is the dative of instrument, and can only be ren¬ 
dered, ^^wiTH WATER.” It is used twice in the 
same form in the same sentence, and can have 
no other translation. Dipped with water, plunged 
WITH water, is a syntax neither Greek nor English. 
Besides, amass of iron” which it required ‘^smiths” 
— mo?-e than one man —to draw out of .the fire, and 
that ^‘mass” ‘Gieated to redness,” wms not a thing 
to be dipped, in the sense of the Baptists. It vms 
baptized (hudati) with water, not into water. It 
was not^w^ in a vessel filled with water, but water 
from a vessel was put on it. There was pouring, 
throwing upon, but no dipping. The water was 
applied to the red-hot mass, and not the red-hot mass 
applied to the water. It w^as with water, not into 
it. Baptizo here cannot be made to mean im¬ 
mersion at all. Yet these are the strong and 
decisive ‘instances” by wdiich Baptists prove that 
baptizo means to immerse and notliing else.” 
With such liberties a man could prove any thing. 

The next four, eleventh, thirteenth, fourteenth, 
fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, twenty-first, 
twenty-eighth, tw^enty-ninth, and thirtieth quota¬ 
tions give baptizo to denote the loss of vessels and 
men at sea by sinking to the bottom. There are 
other instances of the same kind. But if this 
is to be taken as the sense which Baptists attach 


BAPTIZO-THE CLASSICS. 


71 


to the word, and it can have but the one exact 
meaning, then no man is baptized unless he is sunk 
to the bottom of the sea and kept there. The 
idea of emersion, or rising again, is here excluded, 
from baptizo. Nay, Dr. Fuller boldly affirms in 
one j^lace that “ baptizo has nothing to do with the 
rising again.'’ Then to baptize a man is simply 
to take him under the water, to the bottom of it, 
and to leave him there; and it is a violation of 
divine command to bring him up again. Christ 
commands only the baptizing, not the fishing up 
of what has been sunk; and, if bapAizo has but one 
meaning, and that meaning is given in these quo¬ 
tations, Christ’s command to baptize people is- 
simply a command to sink them to the bottom of 
the sea,—to drown them ! 

In the sixth instance baptizo is employed to 
denote the dipping of a vessel in a fountain to 
take up water, or the filling of a vessel with water 
in a fountain. It is not necessarily or even pro¬ 
bably a case of total immersion. It is not common 
in such an operation to submerge the entire vessel, 
hand, handle, and all. 

In the next instance a crow is said to ^‘baptize 
herself” by washing her head and breast upon the 
margin of a lake or stream. Most persons have 
seen this performance. It includes a slight dip¬ 
ping and splashing, but nothing like “a total im¬ 
mersion.” 

In the eighth, tenth, twenty-sixth, and forty- 
third instances baptizo is used to signify the act 
of drowning in the waves, or of causing one to 
sink into the waters so as to be drowned. But, 


72 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

unless Christ’s command to baptize is a command 
to sink beneath the surges so as to drown the 
subject, baptizo here and haptizo in the New 
Testament differ in signification. 

In the ninth quotation haptizo is used to denote 
the dissolving of Cupid in wine in order to drink 
him. Are we to baptize people by making a 
drinkable solution of them ? 

In the twelfth instance haptizo denotes the sud¬ 
den and furious pouring forth of the waters of the 
overflowing Nile, by which cattle are destroyed. 
Carson’s version of the passage is, “ Many of the 
land-animals, \haptizomenaf\ immersed in the river, 
perish.” This rendering, as Wilson observes, “is 
grossly incorrect, inasmuch as the Greek saj^s not 
one word about being immersed in the liver or in 
any portion of water whatever. Dr. Carson’s 
translation not only assumes quietly the point in 
debate, but invents for the Greek participle a con¬ 
struction which is not found in the original or 
necessarily suggested by the connection.” The ver¬ 
sion given by Dr. Fuller is not quite so bad, but 
still conceals an important element in the idea of 
the author. The literal rendering is this:—“ Many 
of the land-animals, overtaken by the river, perish, 
[haptizomena,'] being baptized.” Here we have 
clearly the river coming upon the animals, and not 
the animals thrust into the river. Baptizo in this 
passage will bear the sense of overwhelm, pouring 
over, but not the sense of dipping or immersing. 
It has in it here the idea of mode; and that mode 
38 dashing or pouring upon. 

The eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth in- 


BAPTTZO—THE CJ.ASSICS. 


73 


stances, which are taken from Strabo, give baptizo 
in the sense of sinking, or being sunk, very much 
as in the case of vessels lost at sea. 

The twenty-second is from Plutarch :—Baptize 
yourself in the sea, and, sitting down on the 
ground, remain all day.^' Dr. Fuller gives it. 

Plunge yourself in the sea.” But, if a man were 
to plunge himself into the sea, he would hardly 
find ground to sit on all day. The sense of bap¬ 
tizo in this passage plainly is to wash. It contains 
not a word about mode or immersion. Wash 
meets all the wants of the case, and also of the 
next respecting “ the lake Copais.” It is simply 
washing, with not the slightest reference to 
“ plunging” or immersion. 

The next case is a very remarkable one to be 
quoted in proof that baptizo means only total im¬ 
mersion. Speaking of a procession of marching 
soldiers, Plutarch says, “ In this whole company 
there was not to be seen a buckler, a helmet, or 
spear, but, instead of them, cups, flagons, and 
goblets, baptizing from large vessels of wine, which 
the soldiers drank to each other, some as they 
marched along, and others seated at tables.” Dr. 
Fuller says, “ baptizing here means dipping.” 
Perhaps it does, in the sense in which a man 
touches a cup into a fluid to take up for drinking. 
But, considering the circumstances under which 
the thing was done, and the nature of the vessels 
in which we would expect to find the wine carried 
with a moving army, we would rather say it 
means drawing in the sense of pouring out into. 

Pliny, describing a bathing establishment, speaks 
7 








74 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

of two large basins projecting from the wall, 
which he says were large enough \in7iare] to 
float in/’ He calls these basins baptisteria, —from 
M’hich Dr. Fuller concludes that baptizo must mean 
immerse. Let him consult Potter’s Antiquities, 
or Eschenburg’s Manual, or Smith’s Classical Dic¬ 
tionary, and he will find that “the word baptiste- 
rium is not a bath (Pliny does not so describe it) 
large enough to immerse the whole body, but a 
vessel or labrum containing cold water for pouring 
over the head” If this quotation, therefore, proves 
any thing on this point, it proves that baptizo 
relates to the pouring of water or washing in 
general. 

We are referred to yet a few other examples, in 
which baptizo is used to set forth the results of 
overstimulation, the stupefaction of men hy drunk¬ 
enness or sleep; as where it is said, “Bacchus 
baptizes one with sleep like that of death.” But 
what can such instances prove as to mode? By a 
livel}^ figure, we may say a man is immersed in 
wine; but it is equally rhetorical to speak of him 
as drenched with wine, overwhelmed with intoxica¬ 
tion. There is simply the denotation of an effect. 
That eflect is the induction of a state of stupefac¬ 
tion or insensibility. And the idea clearly involves 
the coming of the sleep upon the man more than 
the dipping or plunging of the man into the 
sleep. 

These are the grand foundations upon which 
Dr. Fuller and his friends rely to prove that “ bap¬ 
tizo means immerse and nothing else.” Must 
they not be exceedingly in want, to lean upon 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS. 


75 


such testimony? The sun passes behind the seas, 
and it is said to be baptized. Water is thrown 
upon a mass of red-hot iron, and it is said to be 
baptized. A vessel is overwhelmed in the sea by 
the raging storm and dashing waves, or sunk to 
the bottom to rise no more, and it is said to be 
baptized. A man takes a vessel and dips up from 
a fountain, and that vessel is said to be baptized. 
A crow dips her head into the margin of a stream 
or lake and splashes herself with her wings, and 
she is said to baptize herself. A man is held down 
under the water until he drowns, and he is said to 
be baptized. A fancied creature is dissolved in 
wine, and it is called baptism. The Nile suddenly 
overflows and pours its waters out over the land 
and overwhelms certain animals, and they are 
said to be baptized. An individual sinks into a 
lake or into the mire of the sea, and he is said to' 
be baptized. He washes himself, and he is baptized 
again. Marching soldiers draw or pour out wine 
as they move along in procession, and it is called 
baptizing. Pliny talks of large wash-basins pro¬ 
jecting from the walls of a bath-house, and they 
are baptizing-implements. A drunkard is stupefied 
wdth rum, overwhelmed with intoxication, and he 
is baptized with the sleep of tlie debauchee. And 
this is to prove to us that baptism is a mere modal 
word, signifying immersion and nothing else! What 
a mind must he have who can agree to excom¬ 
municate—yea, and to damn—men upon such argu¬ 
mentation as this! 


II. But, if these citations were in themselves all 


76 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

that Baptists seem to think they are, they -would 
be inadequate to settle the point at issue. Admit, 
for argument’s sake, that in every instance ad¬ 
duced baptizo certainly means total immersion and 
nothing else: could that decide its meaning in the 
ten thousand other cases in which it has been 
used? Take a parallel case in the English lan¬ 
guage. The most ordinary thinker who reads at 
all can produce ten times as many instances to 
prove that the word “ let” means simply to permit. 
But will that prove that the word let never means 
any thing but to permit? Certainly not; for we can 
demonstrate from Shakspeare and the English 
classics generally that let means to hinder as well as 
to permit. Again: we can give more instances than 
Dr. Fuller alleges on baptizo to prove that in the 
older English classics the word ‘‘prevent” was 
used only in the sense of going before, preceding, 
taking the advance of. But does that settle the 
meaning of prevent in modern English writing? 
Certainly not; for every one knows that prevent 
now means to hinder, to stop, to intercept. Suppose, 
then, that Dr. Fuller’s quotations from the Greek 
authors do give the sense of total immersion to 
baptizo, —which we dispute: that proves only that 
immersion was with them a common meaning of 
this word. This no one denies; and it is useless— 
a work of supererogation—for our Baptist friends 
to be so voluminous in proof of a universally- 
admitted point. But let it be never so well esta¬ 
blished that in so and so many cases of classic 
usage baptizo signifies immersion: that does not 
and cannot go one jot to prove that it nowhere— 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS. 


77 


and especially not in ^ew Testament Greek — 
means any thing but immersion. 

Now, to prove that baptizo never has, anywhere, 
more than this one meaning of total immersion, 
is a much larger undertaking than our Baptist 
friends have imagined it to be. It is an attempt 
to prove a negative in a very wide field. It is 
venturing to deny a fact that has a very ample 
and unexplored range of probability in which to 
be verified. It is like undertaking to prove that 
there are no worlds in God’s universe but those 
which astronomers have seen, or that no member 
of the human race bears the name of Beelzebub. 
To do the one, there must first be a complete 
exploration of creation up to where it joins upon 
nothingness; and to do the other, there must first 
be an actual ascertainment of what the name of 
every member of the race is. And so, when Dr. 
Fuller says, will prove the negative,” and 
undertakes to show that baptizo never means any 
thing but immerse, he obligates himself to go 
through with a demonstration which must forever 
remain incomplete and unsatisfactory until he has 
shown, by actual ascertainment, what its exact 
signification is in every sentence in which it 
occurs in the whole round of Greek literature, 
whether classic or otherwise. So long as any part 
of the field remains unexplored, so long must 
there be a proportionate degree of doubt as to the 
correctness of any theory which a few known 
facts may seem to warrant. Has our friend, then, 
made any thing like a general, impartial, or ade¬ 
quate search into the usus loquendi of this word ? 

7 * 


78 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

Has he seen and examined all the various passages 
in which it occurs? He certainly will make no 
such pretensions. From indications which we will 
not stop to point out, we are constrained to believe 
that he has not examined in their connections even 
the tenth part of the few passages which he has 
transferred to his pages. How ridiculous, then, for 
him to talk of having proven total immersion to 
be the specific and exclusive meaning of baptizo! 
And how utterly inadequate at best are a few 
classic quo ations to show that the writers of the 
Hew Testament, living in another age and country, 
reared under other influences, and laboring to set 
forth other ideas, must needs have used this word 
in this particular and no other sense! 

III. That the Greek of the Hew Testament is 
not classic Greek is well known to every scholar. 
There was once a time when some men thought 
such an admission detracted from the character of 
the Sacred Writings, and attempted to establish the 
contrary. But all their efforts—some of which 
were very learned—have proven only grand failures. 
Let any one read Winer’s Idioms of the Language 
of the Hew Testament, or even Professor Stuart’s 
Grammar of the Hew^ Testament, or compare any 
good lexicon of the Hew Testament with the 
purely classic Greek lexicons, and he will be satis¬ 
fied that the Greek of the Hew Testament has 
many lexical as well as grammatical deflections 
from the true Greek usage. To argue this point 
would take us too far for this brief treatise. We 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS. 


79 


will only quote it few of the promiuent authorities 
on the subject. 

Ernesti says, ^‘We deny, without hesitation, 
that the diction of the New Testament is pure 
Greek. ... In many passages there would arise an 
absurd and ridiculous meaning if they should be 
interpreted according to a pure Greek idiom. 
(Pp. 56, 67.) 

Winer says, the Greek of the New Testament is 
“a Jewish Greek, which native Greeks generally 
did not understand, and therefore despised3” that 
^‘many Greek words are used by the New Testa¬ 
ment writers with direct reference to the Chris¬ 
tian system, as technical religious expressions; so 
that from this arises an element of diction pecu¬ 
liarly Christianand that “the New Testament 
contains many words not known to the written 
language of the Greeks, but introduced from the 
popular language, and even some newly formed.’^ 
(Idioms, pp. 31, 36, 38.) 

Dr. G; Campbell, a very high authority with 
Baptists, says that “classical use, both in Greek 
and in Latin, is not only in this study sometimes 
unavailing, but may even mislead. The sacred 
use and the classical are often very different.(On 
the Gospels, vol. i. p. 58.) 

Davidson says, “It is almost superfluous to re¬ 
mark that the nature of the New Testament diction 
differs from the classical language of Greece. . . . 
When native Hebrews were commissioned to write 
about Christianity in the Greek tongue, they had 
ideas for which that tongue furnished no appro¬ 
priate terms. . . . Hence it became necessary either 


80 


THE BAPTIST S/STEM EXAMINED. 


to employ words already existing in new senses, 
or to make entirely new ones. Both expedients 
were adopted.” (Bibl. Crit. pp. 2, 5, 6.) 

Biodati of Naples, who has written very learn¬ 
edly and powerfully upon this subject, maintains 
that the language of Christ and the New Testa¬ 
ment is “a Hellenistic dialect combining G-reek 
words with a Hebrew phraseology.” He calls it 
hybrida lingua, ‘^a mongrel tongue, the main strain 
of which was Greek, but so completely made up 
of foreign admixtures, that, were all the contri¬ 
butions from various quarters removed, little would 
remain.” {Exercitatio de Christo Greece Loquente, 
translated by Dobbin.) 

Seiler, in his Biblical Hermeneutics, says, “There 
are many Greek words which among profane 
writers are used in a signification which, if not 
altogether difterent, is at least not precisely the 
same with that attached to them by the writers 
of the New Testament.” (P. 379.) And it is just 
for this reason that Professor Stuart has remarked 
that “classical usage can never be very certain in 
respect to the meaning of a word in the New 
Testament.” 

Many testimonies to the same effect might 
be given from Heinsius, Vorst, Fisher, Leusden, 
Sturtzius, Plank, Hug, Eobinson, and nearly all 
the prominent New Testament critics, from the 
days of Schleusner to the present. But it is use¬ 
less to occupy space with authorities to prove what 
is so plain and obvious to every scholar. The 
reader may safely take it as settled forever that 
neither lexically nor grammatically is the Greek of 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS- 


81 


the New Testament the same as that of the classic 
Greek authors. 

To whom, then, do our Baptist friends refer for 
examples to settle the New Testament sense of 
the word haptizo^ Opening Dr. Fuller’s book, we 
find the names of his authors ranging as follows:— 
Orpheus, Heraclides Ponticus, Polybius, the Greek 
Scholiasts on Euripides and Aratus, Alcibiades, 
Anacreon, iEsop, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Pin¬ 
dar, Strabo, Epictetus, Lucian, Josephus, Philo,— 
all classic Grecians, not one of whom can he ranked 
with that school of Greek writers to which the Greek 
of the New Testament belongs. Though the last 
two were native Hebrews, they labored to write 
in the pure Grecian style. ^^As to the works Of 
Josephus and Philo,’’ says Davidson, ‘‘they afford 
less aid in explaining the New Testament, because 
they were able (and ambitious) to write in a style 
nearer that of the later Greeks than what appears 
in the New Testament.” (Bibl. Grit. vol. ii. p. 7.) 
“Flavius Josephus,” says Seiler, “labored to write 
elegant Greek, and to imitate the Greek profane 
authors.” (Bibl. Herm. p. 373.) Without a single 
exception, then, all these authors are to be re¬ 
garded as classic Grecians; and how can their 
manner of using a word settle the meaning of that 
word in Hebraic Christian Greek, which, according 
to Diodati, “differs from the pure Greek, both in 
style and phraseology, more than Bruttian from 
Tuscan, Gascon from Parisian, and Portuguese 
from Spanish” ? The proposition is absurd. The 
idea is ridiculous. As well might we insist that 
the mongrel English of some German settlement 


82 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

of Pennsylvania is to be interpreted by the diction¬ 
aries of Johnson, Webster, and Eicbardson. 

Who will dare to deny that the New Testament 
emploj’^s terms which were familiar to the classics, 
to convey thoughts which never were attached to 
them by any writers anterior to the apostles or 
outside of the Church? He who does must main¬ 
tain that the New Testament contains no thought, 
no meaning, which was unfamiliar to uninspired 
sages. And who has ever proven that baptizo is not 
one of those terms which have been brought over 
and accommodated to a sense peculiarly religious, 
and technically Christian? Scapula claims that it 
is one of the terms so accommodated. Schcetgen 
asserts the same. So also does Schleusner, and 
Parkhurst, and Eobinson, and Ewing, and Winer, 
and Stuart, and Beecher, and Wilson, and many 
more who stand in the ranks of honored Biblical 
critics. To insist, then, upon interpreting baptizo 
in the New Testament by the classic use of this 
word, is to set up a principle most unreasonable in 
its nature, mischievous in its application, and re¬ 
pugnant to the deepest convictions of justice. But, 
if we must meet this unrighteous demand, and are 
compelled to go to the heathen Greeks to learn 
the Christian use of baptizo^ Ave accept the chal¬ 
lenge, and are not left without resource. 

IV. We will show that even the classic Greeks 
did not always use this word in the sense of “im¬ 
merse and nothing else.’^ 

The passage from Heraclides Ponticus, w^hich is 
the second in Dr. Puller’s list, and upon which we 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS. 


83 


have commented, furnishes one instance to our 
purpose. The baptizing of a red-hot mass of iron 
with water, in this case, certainly was not an im¬ 
mersion. The phraseology, ^^with water” and the 
weight of the heated mass baptized, demonstrate 
that this baptism was performed b}^ pouring and 
applying the water to the subject, and, hence, that 
ba.ptizo here does not and cannot mean a total 
immersion. 

Another example is in the Sibylline verse cited 
by Plutarch, and also referred to by Dr. Fuller as 
if it could be made to support his theory. The 
words are these,—speaking of the city of Athens: 
—“As a bladder thou rnayest be baptized; but thou 
art not destined to sink.’' The plain meaning of 
this passage is, that the illustrious capital of Attica, 
though it might undergo grievous calamities and 
be repeatedly endangered in all its interests, was 
destined to survive its disasters and to be pre¬ 
served from utter destruction,—just as a skin or 
' bladder filled with air, and thrown upon the water, 
might be dashed by the waves, and often heavily 
sprinkled with their spray, (baptized,) but cannot 
be submerged by them. If baptize means to sink, 
to go under the water, to be totally immersed, then 
this bladder could not be said to be baptized; for 
it is explicitly stated that it (ou dunai esti) should 
NOT GO UNDER, should DOt be submerged. But, 
whilst this bladder was not to go under, the classic 
author says that it might be baptized. In the sense 
of this writer, then, baptize does not always mean 
to immerse. It means here te sprinkle, or dash 
upon; and that is all. 


84 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


A third example is from Plutarch^ where he says 
of a dying general, “ He set up a trophy, on which, 
having hajptized his hand in blood, he wrote.^^ Dr. 
Fuller asks, upon this passage, ‘^Did the general 
sprinkle or pour his hand V’ We answer. No : he 
baptized his hand. But, as it now is our time to ask 
questions, we demand. Did he totally immerse his 
hand ? If he did, tell us where he got the blood. 
He was dying of wounds; and it was doubtless'his 
own blood that he used. But had it been carefully 
caught up in a basin in sufficient quantity to bury 
his whole hand in it? There is nothing to indicate 
such a thing; and to suppose it is absurd. How, 
then, did he totally immerse his hand ? All the 
circumstances of the case give but one answer, 
and that is that he did not wimerse his entire hand. 
He only took of his blood upon his fingers and 
wrote; and that taking of his blood upon his 
fingers is called baptizing his hand. According to 
this passage, then, again, baptize does not mean 
total immersion and nothing else. 

A fourth example is from the Life of Homer 
attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. In the 
sixteenth book of the Iliad, the poet says of Ajax 
slaying Cleobulus, “He struck him on the neck 
with his hilted sword, and the whole sword was 
warmed with blood'/’ on which Dionysius remarks 
of Homer, “ In this he expresses greater emphasis, 
as the sword being so baptized as to be even 
warmed.’' Gale and Carson interpret this baptism 
so as to make the sword “so dipped in blood as to 
be heated by it.” At such laxity of paraphrase 
Dr. Halley is indignant, and says, “It is a false- 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS. 


85 


hood. To introduce the words ‘dipped in blood’ 
is as scandalous a misrepresentation as I have ever 
detected. There is not a word about dipping in 
blood in the original.” But what shall then be 
said of Dr. Fuller’s paraphrase, where he make.s 
the passage mean “that the dagger pierced the 
throat, and there, being immersed in blood, became 
warm” ? The sword certainly was rather dipped 
in blood than immersed in it. The plain meaning 
of the passage is this:—that Ajax struck his sword 
on the neck of Cleobulus, one of the results of which 
was that the blood flowed so copiously as to warm 
the whole sword. There was no dipping of the 
sword in blood. There was no entire burial of it 
in the neck of the sutferer and a leaving of it stick¬ 
ing there. It was simply a warming of the sword 
by the profuse gush of blood which attended the 
stroke. And that flow of the blood upon the sword 
of Ajax is called the baptism of it. We deny that 
it could have been a total immersion. AYe deny 
that it was a dipping; but Dionysius says it was a 
baptism. Baptizo, therefore, does not always mean 
a total immersion. 

We have already submitted a few remarks upon 
the classic use of baptizo as connected with intoxi¬ 
cation. We have still an observation or two to 
make upon that point. In all such cases the idea 
is evidently connected w\i\\ pouring upon pour¬ 
ing into, till mind and body are overwhelmed, im¬ 
pregnated, intoxicated, drenched to stupefaction or 
destruction. Thus, (Athen. Deipnos. lib. 5,) “to 
have been baptized [too akratoo'] with strong wine,” 
does not mean to be dipped, plunged, immersed in 
8 


86 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

wine. The Greek has the dative of instrument, 
and requires the construction with wine” So 
also in the passage, “ having made Alexander 
drunk [baptized hini] with wine” and in other in¬ 
stances which we can give. Alexander was not 
put into the wine, but the wine was put into him. 
There was a drenching, a pouring into, a saturation 
with, but no dipping, no immersion. In all such 
passages, then, baptizo cannot mean total im¬ 
mersion and nothing else. And to these passages 
we may add the best of authorities. 

Professor Wilson, of the Eoyal College, Belfast, 
has this remark:—‘‘The assertion that baptizo 
denotes to dip, and only to dip, we hold to be 
utterly incapable of proof, by a full induction of 
the instances presented in the classical literature 
of Greece. On the contrary, the usage of philo¬ 
sophers, historians, and poets forces the admission 
of considerable latitude as to mere mode, by apply¬ 
ing the term indiscriminately to the immersion of 
an object in the baptizing substance, and to the 
bringing of the baptizing substance upon and 
around an object.’^ (P. 130.) 

Greville Ewing, author of a Greek Grammar and 
a Greek-and-English Scripture Lexicon, says, “I 
distinctly deny that the Greeks have always under¬ 
stood the word baptism to signify dipping. . . . We 
are prepared to show that it signifies the appli¬ 
cation of water, or some other liquid, in any man¬ 
ner, or for any purpose: by effusion, affusion, 
perfusion, or infusion; by sprinkling, daubing, 
friction, or immersion; wholly or partially, per¬ 
manently or for a moment; for purifying or 


BAPTIZO—THE CLASSICS. 


87 


defiling, ornamenting or bespattering, washing 
away what was found adhering, or covering with 
what was not thei’e before; for merely wetting the 
surface, or causing the liquor to sink into the 
inmost core.^’ 

Godwin says of fifty cases which he had col¬ 
lected of the use of bajptizo^ there are only three 
where the construction is that required by the 
sense of dipping.^^ 

Dr. Beecher says of the classic use of haptizOy ^‘1 
freely admit that in numerous cases it clearly 
denotes to immerse,—in which case an agent sub¬ 
merges partially or totally some person of thing. 
It is also applied to cases where a fluid without an 
agent rolls over or floods and covers any thing. 
It is also applied in cases where some person or 
thing sinks passively into the flood. I am aware 
that by some writers vigorous efforts are made to 
reduce all these senses to the original idea to im¬ 
merse or dip. But it seems to me that they are 
rather led by their zeal to support a theory, than 
by a careful induction from facts; and that they 
•wrest facts to suit their principles, rather than 
derive their principles from facts.” 

Dr. John Gumming says, ^^In profane writers, 
hapto and baptizo are unquestionably used both in 
the sense of dipping and pouring or sprinkling.” 

Now, what more can any reasonable man want ? 
We have shown that the examples adduced and 
relied on by Baptists give baptizo in other senses 
than that of simple dipping or immersion; that, if 
they even proved immersion to be the clear import 
of this word so far as respects these passages them- 


88 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED, 


selves, it would prove nothing as to its meaning 
in other places and writers; that, at best, classic 
Greek, from which these quotations are taken, is 
an unsafe and dangerous guide for the interpreta¬ 
tion of the Hebraic Christian Greek of the Hew 
Testament; nay, more: that, even in the classics, 
haptizo is often used where the idea of dipping and 
immersion is foreign, improbable, and impossible. 
And if this is not enough to neutralize and demolish 
the force of all that can be brought from the clas¬ 
sics to decide the meaning of Christ's command, 
there is no strength in logic and no power in truth. 

What, then, does this part of Dr. Fuller’s argu¬ 
ment, upon which he has staked so much, amount 
to? It proves that in some cases the classic use 
of baptizo denotes the act of dipping, submerging, 
overflowing, sinking, drenching, overwhelming; 
and this is all it proves. And, as to this, he might 
have saved his pains, for we have never yet found 
any one to deny it. We admit it without hesi¬ 
tation. But we do most peremptorily deny that 
the classics always use baptizo in this sense, or that 
our admission is worth a farthing to prove that 
this is its meaning in the Hew Testament. 

Greville Ewing says, ‘‘I have not been able to 
meet with an instance of immersion-baptism in the 
Holy Scriptures." When we come to that depart¬ 
ment of this inquiry, we shall show that no such 
instance can be found. But we must first dispose 
of some other points. 


BAPTIZO—THE AUTHORITIES. 


«9 


CHAPTEE YIII. 

BAPTIZO—THE AUTHORITIES. 

To his citations from the classics Dr. Fuller 
adds a number of authorities, about the same that 
are found in nearly every Baptist publication on 
this controversy. Alleged quotations are given 
from Calvin, Luther, Beza, Yitringa, Hospinian, 
Gutlerus, Buddeus, Salmasius, Yenema, Fritzeche, 
Augusti, Brenner, Bretschneider, Paulus, Ehein- 
hard, Scholz, Lange, and Anthon, to prove— what? 
what nobody denies—that baptizo does mean im¬ 
merse. But what is the use of being so wonder¬ 
fully erudite upon points where there is no dis¬ 
pute? It seems to be a settled part of Baptist 
logic to accumulate authorities upon things in 
which w'e all agree, in order, by an adroit petitio 
principiiy to make it appear that they have tri¬ 
umphantly proven what they have not yet begun 
to prove. The point is not whether baptizo means 
immerse, but whether this is its specific, uniform, and 
only meaning. The one we admit; the other we 
deny. Especially in classic Greek is baptizo used 
to denote sinking, dipping, plunging, overwhelm¬ 
ing, destroying by water; and we can give stronger 
instances of this than the great mass of those 
given by Dr. Fuller. But we would surrender 


90 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED 


some of our clearest convictions of truth, to admit 
for one moment that it is never used in other 
senses, or that immerse and nothing else is its 
meaning in the New Testament. We also deny 
that these authors referred to by Dr. Fuller ever 
meant to say that immerse is the only meaning 
of bapiizo, or that this is at all its sense in the 
Scriptures. 

Calvin is quoted; but Calvin says, ^WYhether 
the person who is baptized be wholly immersed, 
and whether thrice or once, or whether water be 
only poured or sprinkled upon him, is of no import¬ 
ance.” (Inst. lib. 4, ch. 15, sec. 19.) 

Luther is quoted. We would ask, Was Luther 
an honest man? Will any one charge him with 
being too great a coward to declare his convic¬ 
tions or to do what he believed to be right ? If 
he then really believed that baptism in the New 
Testament means immersion and nothing else, 
what is the . reason that he never immersed any 
one, and that he never was immersed himself? 
He agreed that immerse is a common meaning of 
baptizo; but he also claimed that its New Testa¬ 
ment import was exhausted, or, at least, ade¬ 
quately met, by the sprinkling, pouring, or apply¬ 
ing “ a mere handful of water” upon the candidate. 
He speaks of “ dipping a child in water, or sprinkling 
it with water,” as “ according with the command of 
Christ.” He refers to baptism as involving no 
parade or display, and says that therein “ God out¬ 
wardly does no 7nore than apply a handful of water.” 
Again, he says of baptism, “ God has commanded 
that we use our hand and tongue in administering 


BAPTIZO—THE AUTHORITIES. 


91 


it, hy sprinkling water vpon the subject in connection 
with the words which he has prescribed.’^ Again, 
he says, All that is essential to baptism is the use 
of natural water in connection loith the words of the 
institution” l^ay, he has himself given us a ver¬ 
sion of the New Testament, in which he translates 
baptizo four times by the general word waschen, to 
washy and construes it elsewhere several times 
with the preposition with [mit\y—^‘with water,” 
with the Holy Ghost.” And where it is used 
Avith reference to the baptismal sacrament he 
renders it by the religious word taufen, Avhich, 
even in its etymological derivation, is a much 
lighter, freer, and more general word than those 
used in German to signify immersion, submersion, 
and the like. And in Eev. xix. 13 he translates 

baptOy BESPRENGET-BESPRINKLED. With all this 

before him, what honest man can ever again refer 
to Luther as authority for the doctrine that bap¬ 
tizo means immerse and nothing else”? 

Beza is quoted; but Beza affirms that baptizo 
means “fc wash” as well as to immerse, and that 
it differs from the word dunaiy which signifies to 
plunge in, to go under.” 

Bretschneider is quoted; but in his formal defini¬ 
tion of baptizo he says, it “ properly means often 
to dip, often to wash; then to wash, simply to 
cleanse; in the middle voice, 1 wash or cleanse my¬ 
self” This writer, says Dr. Fuller, ‘Gs confessedly 
the most critical lexicographer of the New Testa¬ 
ment.” 

Fritzeche is quoted; but on Mark vii. 4, 8 he 
agrees Avith Grotius in giving baptizo the gene- 


92 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


ral signification of ‘^wash,” just as our English 
translators have done, some of whom were im- 
mersionists. 

Eeinhard is quoted; but in looking over his 
theology we find such passages as these:—‘‘It 
is known that the word baptizo means to wash 
[abwascheri], to cleanse; and in the New Testa¬ 
ment, as well as in other authors, it embraces 
various j)articular significations. Baptismos in 
the New Testament is used for a special or 
general purification.” “Earthly or perceptible, 
j)ure, natural water, in which a baptized person is 
immersed, or with which he is paHially sprinkled, 
is the baptism instituted by Christ.’’ “The form 
or rite consists of an immersion or sprinkling in the 
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which 
is clear from the words of the institution itself.” 
{Eeinhard's Dogmatik, pp. 567, 570, 572.) 

Bloomfield is quoted; but on Mark vii. 4, 8 
Bloomfield says, “ Here we are not to suppose an 
immersion implied, (that being never used, except 
when some actual and not possible pollution had 
been incurred,) but merely ordinary washing, or 
perhaps, on occasions of urgent haste, sprinkling. 
Hence the gloss (for it is only a gloss) of some 
manuscripts,— rantizontai.” 

Buddeus is quoted. AVe have not his theology 
at hand to refer to; but, from our knowledge of 
Buddeus, we are confident that he no more makes 
immersion essential to Christian baptism than 
does Eeinhard. 

The Leipsic Free Inquiry on this subject is 
cited; but the author agrees that under .?er- 


BAPTIZO—THE AUTHORITIES. 


93 


tain conditions the word means cleansing or wash¬ 
ing;’ (p. 7.) 

From these specimens the reader will see the 
way in which Baptist controversialists deal with 
authorities, and how they make learned men say 
what they never meant to say,—nay, what they 
have pointedly contradicted and denied. A man 
says that baptizo means immerse, and his words 
are caught up and printed in every Baptist book, 
and recited in every Baptist pulpit, in proof that 
baptizo everywhere and always means immersion; 
when that same man holds the contrary, and has 
so declared, sometimes on the same page and in 
the same line from which the quotation is made. Is 
this fair? Is it honest? We have admitted that 
baptizo sometimes means immerse, especially in the 
classics; hut would it be a just version of our 
sentiments to quote those admissions in proof that 
baptizo means only to immerse, or that it must be 
so interpreted in the New Testament? Certainly 
not. It would be a base misrepresentation. We 
hold, with Dr. Owen, that ‘‘no one instance can be 
given in the Scriptures wherein baptizo doth neces¬ 
sarily signify either to dip or to plunge.” Dr. Owen, 
sa 3 ^s Bice, ‘^is one of the greatest men who has 
lived.’^ 

As to Professor Anthon’s opinion, given to Dr. 
Parmly, respecting the force of baptizo, and con¬ 
cerning which our Baptist friends make so much 
ado, we will merely quote the remarks of Dr. Bice 
in his debate with Campbell:— 

^^Dr. Anthon, I presume, is a classical scholar; 
but I have abundantly proved that an acquaint- 


94 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


anco with classic Greek will not qualify a man to 
expound the language of the New Testament, 
which is written in Hebrew-Greek. The classic 
usage, as Ernesti and Dr. Campbell and Professor 
Stuart affirm, will, if followed, in many cases en¬ 
tirely mislead the interpreter of the New Testa¬ 
ment. I would attach very little importance, there¬ 
fore, to the opinion of a classical scholar concern¬ 
ing an important word in the New Testament, 
unless I knew he had studied the idiom of the 
Greek spoken by the Jews and inspired writers. 
Dr. Anthon decided that Dr. Spring was in error 
concerning this word. But I venture to say that 
Dr. Spring is quite as well known as a scholar as 
the gentleman who sat in judgment upon him. 
Dr. Spring is one of the first men in our country; 
and it will not do to attempt to put down the 
views he may have expressed merely by the i;pse 
dixit of Dr. Anthon. Dr. Clarke will, perhaps, be 
admitted to have been equal as a classical scholar— 
at least, so far as languages are concerned—to Dr. 
Anthon; and he says it is certain that ba.ptizo 
means both to dip and to sprinkle. Perhaps Dr. 
Dwight will be admitted to have been superior in 
Biblical criticism to Dr. Anthon; and he, after a 
thorough examination of the subject, came fully to 
the conclusion that, in the Scriptures, baptizo does 
not at all mean to immerse. Dr. Scott, the learned 
commentator, was of a similar opinion. I will 
put the authority of such men as these against 
that of Anthon.” (P. 176.) 

It is also noticeable in these quotations that Dr. 
Fuller gives them as ‘‘concessions from learned 


BAPTIZO-THE AUTHORITIES. 


95 


men not Baptists.’^ Alexander Campbell bad so 
presented them before. But a concession is the act 
of granting or yielding, implying a demand or 
claim from the party to whom it is made; and 
many of the authors named lived anterior to the 
rise of the Baptist controversy, or in countries 
where this subject was never mooted. What such 
have said cannot therefore be made to pass for the 
“concessions’^ of men who had the point in debate 
distinctly before them, and yielded only to the 
pressure of demand. They spoke these things, 
if they are rightly quoted, not in the way of con¬ 
cessions to the strength of Baptist argument, but 
in the way of free etymological illustrations of 
great spiritual truths,—just as Dr. Chalmers refers 
to the practice of the Oriental Churches of ad¬ 
ministering baptism by immersion. They did not 
mean to admit that immersion enters into the 
essence and validity of baptism as a Christian 
sacrament. Else why did they not practice im¬ 
mersion ? Or why were they content without 
being immersed themselves? How could they say 
that their own baptism was no baptism at all, and 
yet not seek after any other? They were Chris¬ 
tian men. They taught that baptism is neces¬ 
sary. And yet we are to be told that they held 
ami believed there could be no baptism without 
immersion, and thus regarded their own personal 
and cherished Christianity as a mere farce! 

We feel particularly indignant, in this connection, 
at Alexander Campbell, for the manner in which 
he professes to quote Luther. In his Debate with 
Bice, p. 152, he says, “ I place at the head of the 


96 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


list the Eeformer and translator, Martin Luther. 
In the fifth of the Smalcald Articles, drawn up by 
Luther, he says, ‘ Baptism is nothing else than the 
word of God with immersion in water.’ ” The 
original words of Luther are these:— Die Taufe 
ist niclits anders denn Gottes wort im wasser the 
literal English of which is, Baptism is nothing else 
than the word of God in water.” Luther here is not 
speaking of mode at all, but of the constitution and 
nature of the baptismal sacrament. He quotes in 
the same connection from Augustine:—“When the 
word comes to be with the element, it becomes a 
sacrament.” It is the union of the word and water 
to constitute this sacrament, of which he is treat¬ 
ing, and not the connection of the candidate with 
the water. Baptism is the word of God in water:” 
i.e. the word of God demands the use of water, and 
in that water the word of God is reflected. As he 
elsewhere expresses it, “ The sacrament is the 
visible word;” or, as he says again, “The word is 
included in the water.” There is no immersion 
about it. The mode of administering the ordi¬ 
nance is not at all in point. It has no place in the 
passage. Yet this is the way “ learned men not 
Baptists” are quoted to prove that Baptists are 
right, and nobody else ! 

But, if our Baptist friends think to settle this 
question by authorities, we also have a few, to 
which we now invite attention. 

Dr. Dwight, one of the most distinguished theo¬ 
logians and scholars this country has ever pro¬ 
duced, says, “I have examined almost one hundred 
instances in which the word baptizo and its deriva- 


BAPTIZO—THE AUTHORITIES. 


97 


lives are used in the New Testament, and four in 
the Septuagint,—these, so far as I have observed, 
being all the instances contained in both. By this 
examination it is to my apprehension evident that 
the following things are true:—That the primary 
meaning of these terms is cleansing ,—the effect, not 
the mode, of washing j and that these words, al¬ 
though often capable of denoting any mode of 
washing, whether by affusion, sprinkling, or im¬ 
mersion, (since cleansing was familiarly accom¬ 
plished by the Jews in all these ways,) yet in 
many instances cannot, without obvious impro¬ 
priety, be made to signify immersion, and in others 
cannot signify it at all.'’ (Theol. vol. iv. p. 345.) 

Dr. Henderson says, With respect to the Greek 
word baptizo, after having read almost every work 
that professes to throw any light upon it, and 
carefully examined all the passages in which both 
it and its derivatives occur in the sacred volume, 
and a very considerable number of those in which 
it is found in classic authors, we are free to confess 
we have not yet fallen in with a single instance in 
which it can be satisfactorily proved that it signifies 
a submersion of the whole body, without at the 
same time conveying the idea that the submersion 
was permanent, i.e. that the body thus submerged 
sunk to rise no more. So far as has vet been ascer¬ 
tained, the word is never used by any ancient 
author in the sense of one person performing an 
act of submersion upon another.” How evident, 
therefore, that this word has a peculiar and specific 
sense when employed by the Holy Ghost, and that, 


98 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


when so employed^ mere immersion cannot be its 
meaning,. 

Dr. Watson says, The verb hapto, with its de¬ 
rivatives, signifies to dip. the hand into a dish, to 
stain a vesture with blood, to wet the body with 
dew, to paint or smear the face with colors, to 
stain the hand by pressing a substance, to be over¬ 
whelmed in the waters as a sunken ship, to be 
drowned by falling into the water, to sink, in the 
neuter sense, to immerse totally, to plunge up to 
the -neck, to be immersed up to the middle, to bo 
drunk with wine, to be dyed, tinged, or imbued, 
to wash by affusion of water, to pour water upon 
the hands or any part of the body, to sprinkle. A 
word then of such application affords as good proof 
of sprinkling, or j)artial dipping, or washing with 
water, as for immersion in it. Tlie controversy on 
this accommodating word has been carried on to 
weariness 5 and if even the advocates of immersion 
could prove—what they have not been able to do—■ 
that plunging is the primary meaning of the term, 
they would gain nothing, since in Scripture it is 
notoriously used to express other applications of 
water.’^ 

Dr. Owen says, ‘‘Baptizo signifies to wash, as 
instances out of all authors may be given,—Suidas, 
Hesychius, Julius Pollux, Phavorinus, and Eus- 
tachius. It is first used in the Scripture, Mark i. 
8; John i. 3e3; and to the same purpose in Acts i. 5. 
In every place it either signifies to pour, or the 
expression is equivocalIleb. ix. 9, 10. ‘‘ Bap- 

tismos is an^^ kind of washing, whether by dipping 
or sprinkling, putting the thing to be washed in 


BAPTIZO—THE AUTHORITIES. 


99 


the water, or applying the water to the thing itself 
to be washed. ... As it {baptizo] expresseth bap¬ 
tism, it denotes to wash only, and not to dip at all: 
for so it is expounded. Tit. iii. 5. ... As the word 
is applied unto the ordinance, the sense of dipping 
is utterly excluded.” 

The learned Calmet, in his Dictionary, defines 
^‘baptismos, from baptizo, to wash, to dip or im- 
merge.” 

Dr. Hill, of St. Mary’s College, St. Andrews, 
says, Both sprinkling and immersion are implied 
in the word baptizo: both were used in the religious 
ceremonies of the Jews, and both may be con¬ 
sidered as significant of the purpose of baptism.” 
(Divinity, p. 470.) 

Dr. Adam Clarke, admitted to have been an 
eminent linguist, says, (Matt. iii. 6,) ‘‘Were the 
people dipped, or sprinkled ? for it is certain bapto 
and BAPTIZO mean both” 

The theologian Dr. John Dick says, “Nothing 
certain as to mode can be learned from the original 
term baptizo, because it has different meanings, 
signifying sometimes to immerse, and sometimes 
to wash” (Theol. vol. ii. p. 377.) 

The Westminster divines, in the Larger Cate¬ 
chism, say, “Baptism is a sacrament of the New 
Testament, wherein Christ hath ordained the wash¬ 
ing with water” 

Dr. Scott, in his Commentary on Matt, iii., saj^s, 
Baptizo seems to be a word borrowed from the 
Greek authors, signifying to plunge in, or bedew 
with, water, without any exact distinction ; and it 
was adopted into the style of Scripture in a peculiar 


100 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


sense, to signify the use of water in this ordinance, 
and various spiritual matters which have a relation 
to it. Some, indeed, contend zealously that bap¬ 
tism always signifies immersion; and learned men 
who have regarded Jewish traditions more than 
either the language of Scripture or the G-reek 
idiom are very decided in this respect; but the use 
of the words baptize and baptism in the New Testa¬ 
ment cannot accord with this exclusive interpreta¬ 
tion.’’ Such was the opinion of this distinguished 
man, as he says, after many years’ consideration 
and study.” 

The great and pious Spener says, ^^Mere pouring 
upon is also to be called baptism.” {Erklarung 
Christ. Lehre, p. 410.) 

The distinguished theologian David Hollaz, 
whose early death, in 1713, has often been de¬ 
plored, makes this statement:—“ It is necessary 
that an individual should be baptized with water,— 
that is, washed in the name of the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost; but it matters not whether this ab¬ 
lution is performed by immersion into water, or 
by affusion or sprinkling with water.” (^Exam. 
Theolog. Acroamat.) 

Haupt, in his Examin. Eogmat. pp. 365, 366, 
says, “ Baptism is the immersion or sprinkling of a 
human being in or with water, on the ground of 
the command and clothed with the word of God. 
. . . Baptismos in the New Testament denotes par¬ 
ticular kinds of purifying.” 

The learned commentator Olshausen, on Mark 
vii. 1, 2, 8, says, Baptismos is here, as at Heb. ix. 
10, ablution,—washing generally.” 



BAPTIZO—THE AUTHORITIES. 


101 


Dr. Cumming says, ‘‘In the New Testament 
haptizo is used in the sense of pouring on, or sprink¬ 
ling” 

Dr. Wall, who has searched very profoundly 
into this whole subject, says, “The word haptizo, 
in Scripture, signifies to ivash in general, without 
determining the sense to this or that sort of wash¬ 
ing.’^ 

Even Dr. Gale, himself a strenuous Baptist, 
writing upon this controversy, is constrained to 
admit, that “ the word haptizo perhaps does not so 
necessarily express the action of putting under 
water, as, in general, a thing’s being in that con¬ 
dition, no matter how it comes so, whether it is put 
into the water, or the water comes over it” (Eefl. 122.) 

Dr. Miller, of Princeton, says, “This word [hap¬ 
tizo'] does not necessarily, nor even commonly, 
signify to immerse, but also implies to wash, to 
sprinkle, to pour on water, and to tinge or dye with 
any liquid, and, therefore, accords very well with 
the mode of baptism by sprinkling or affusion. . . . 
It does legitimately signify the application of water 
in any way, as well as by immersion. Nay, I can 
assure you, if the most mature and competent 
Greek scholars that ever lived may be allowed to 
decide in this case, that many examples of the use 
of this word occur in Scripture in which it not only 
may, but manifestly must, signify sprinkling, per¬ 
fusion, or washing in any way.” 

Edwards says, “ Baptizo has indeed been used for 
all the modes of washing,—sprinkling, pouring, 
and immersing; whereas it does not express the 
one nor the other, but washing only; and this may 


102 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


be done in either of the modes; and, therefore, 
when we read of any person or thing being bap¬ 
tized, we cannot conclude from the word itself 
w^hether it was done by affusion, aspersion, or 
immersion.” 

Dr. Beecher says, ^^The word baptizo, as a re¬ 
ligious term, means neither dip nor sprinkle, 
immerse nor pour, nor any other external action 
in appljdng a fluid to the body or the body to a 
fluid, nor any action that is limited to one mode 
of performance; but, as a religious term, it means, 
at all times, to purify or cleanse,—words of a 
meaning so general as not to be confined to any 
mode, or agent, or means, or object, whether 
material or spiritual, but to leave the widest scope 
for the question as to the mode. So that in this 
usage it is in every respect a perfect synon^^m of 
the word katharizo” 

Dr. Hunnius says, Baptism means to dip, to 
wash. The washing of the Christian is called 
baptism.” (Epit. Cred. § 632.) 

Dr. Schmucker says, “It is evident that many 
of the purifications termed baptisms in the JS'ew 
Testament were certainly performed by sprink¬ 
ling and pouring; whilst it is not certain that they 
were performed by immersion in a single case 
Hence, there is much more Scripture authority for 
sprinkling and pouring, than for immersion, in the 
Hew Testament usage of the word baptism. . We 
have the authority of Paul and Mark, that baptizo 
signifies various applications of water practiced 
by the Jews in their religious rites, which certainly 
included sprinkling, pouring, washing, bathing. 


BAPTIZO—THE AUTHOBITIES. 


103 


but in no case, certainly, immersion/^ (Manual, p. 
143 ) 

Wesley is sometimes referred to by Baptists in 
support of their interpretation of baptizo. We 
shall therefore give him a chance to speak for him¬ 
self. “The matter of this sacrament is water, 
which, as it has a natural power of cleansing, is 
the more fit for this s^^mbolical use. Baptism is 
performed bj^ washing, dipping, or sprinkling the 
person in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost; I say by washing, sprinkling, or dipping; 
because it is not determined in Scripture in which 
of these ways it shall be done, neither by any 
express precept, nor bj" any such example as clearly 
proves it, nor by the force or meaning of the word 
baptism B 

Dr. Eice says, have now examined every 
l^assage in the Bible and in the Apocryphal writings 
of the Jews, where the word baptizo is used in a 
literal sense, without reference to the ordinance of 
Christian baptism; and my clear conviction is, 
that there is not one instance in which it can be 
proved to mean immerse; that in every instance, 
except, perhaps, one which may be doubtful, it can 
be, and has been, proved to express the application 
of water to the person or thing by pouring or 
sprinkling.'’ (Debate with Campbell, p. 158.) 

Gerhard, according to Tholuck, “the most 
learned, and with the learned the most beloved, 
among the heroes of Lutheran orthodoxy," says, 
“Whether a man is baptized by immersion into 
water, or by sprinkling, pouring, or appl^dng the 
water to him, it is the same." (Loci Theol. ix 137.) 


104 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Dr. Schaff says, ^^The application of water is 
necessary to this sacrament; but the quantity of 
it, as also the quality, is certainly not essential. 
Otherwise we should in fact bind the efficacy of 
the Holy Ghost to what is material and acci¬ 
dental.’^ (History, p. 570.) 

Dr. Tracy says, “The word baptism is derived 
from the Greek baptisma and baptize, and more re¬ 
motely from bapto, and properly signifies a washing, 
whether the substance washed be partially or 
wholly immersed in the liquid, or the liquid be 
ap^ilied to the substance, by running, pouring, 
rubbing, dropping, or sprinkling.” (Encycl. Eel. 
Knowl. p. 23.) 

Carpzov, in his Issagoge, says, Baptism is a 
Greek word, and in itself means a washing, in 
whatever way performed, whether by immersion in 
water, or by aspersion,*' (p. 1085.) “It is called in 
Scripture the washing of water. ... It is not re¬ 
stricted to immersion or aspersion: hence it has 
been a matter of indifference from the beginning 
whether to administer baptism by immersion or 
by the pouring of water.” (P. 330.) 

If, then, there is any weight in authority, here 
is an arraj^ of names, representing learning, indus¬ 
try, piety, and love for truth, enough, and suffi¬ 
ciently directed to the point in dispute, to be an 
adequate and complete offset to all the authors 
that our Baptist friends can by any means produce. 
We have shown that the most valuable of those 
referred to by Dr. Fuller have been misquoted 
and misrepresented, being made to speak what 
they never meant, and what many of them ex- 


BAPTIZO IN THE SEPTUAGINT. 105 

plicitly deny. The same is probably true of others 
to whose writings we have not had access, or the 
time to examine. And as to the few who have 
said that immerse is a meaning which always 
adheres to baptizo, all that we have to say is, that 
they have said what cannot be made good, and 
that their opinions are worthless by the side of 
what Ave have given as an offset to them. 

So far, then, as authorities are concerned, our 
Baptist brethren are still as far from proving their 
doctrine as ever. Every successive step but makes 
it plainer that they have assumed grounds which 
cannot be maintained; whilst our position grows 
firmer and firmer that baptizo means to wash, 
cleanse, and purify, without reference to mode. 


CHAPTER IX. 

BAPTIZO IN THE SEPTUAGINT. 

We come now to examine a kind of Greek 
which is more closely allied to the Greek in which 
the New Testament was written,—viz., the Greek 
version of the seventy translators of the Old 
Testament and Apocrypha, made during the reign 
of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about tAvo hundred and 
fifty years before the commencement of the Chris¬ 
tian era. 

The first passage we note in Avhich this word 
occurs is Isaiah xxi. 4. Dr. Fuller thus gives it,—• 



106 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


that is to say, his version of it:—“The prophet, fore¬ 
seeing the capture of Babylon and the subjugation 
of the empire by the Medes and Persians, says, 
^My heart pants, and iniquity sinks (baptizes) me.’^^ 
(P. 49.) Dr. Fuller is horrified at the evident slips 
of the pen made by Mr. Lape in quoting from an 
Apocryphal book, under the head of ‘instances 
from the classic Greek of the Old Testament,” and 
in miswriting a Greek word. He indeed exculpates 
Mr. Lape from ‘^designed perversion of God’s 
word,” but holds him “inexcusable” for his 
“entire ignorance.” What then shall be said of 
Dr. Fuller, wdien we open the Bible and find that 
the passage reads, not ^Hniquity sinks me,” but 
“FEARFULNESS AFFRIGHTED me” ? Has he designedly 
or ignorantly put words in the prophet’s lips which 
the prophet never uttered ? Dr. Alexander renders 
the original Hebrew, Horror appalls me.” (See 
his commentary on this verse.) Scott says, “The 
prophet here seems to personate Belshazzar on the 
night when Babylon was taken.” (See his Com¬ 
mentary.) The passage evidently points to the 
scene described by Daniel, v. 1-6:—“Belshazzar the 
king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, 
and drank wine before the thousand. . . . And they 
brought the golden vessels that were taken out of 
the temple of the house of God, which was at 
Jerusalem, and the king and his princes, and his 
wives and his concubines, drank in them. . . . 
In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s 
hand and wrote over against the candlestick u^ion 
the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace; and 
the king saw the part of the hand that wrote, 


BAPTIZO IN THE SEPTUAGINT. 107 

Then the hinges countenance was changed^ and his 
thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins 
were loosed and his knees smote one against another” 
Accordingly, Lowth paraphrases the passage as if 
Belshazzar were saying to himself, “When 1 
thought to be at ease and to have some respite 
from trouble and anxiety, then the fearful appre¬ 
hensions of God’s judgments seized me” (See his 
Commentary.) And all this fright, appalling horror, 
trembling, and seizure of the soul with fearful 
apprehension of God's judgments is signified in 
the version of the Seventy—which is honored and 
dignified by being quoted by Christ himself and 
his inspired apostles—by the one word baptizei. 
Bid those translators mean that Belshazzar or the 
prophet was dipped in horror? Certainly not. 
The whole case shows a sudden coming of something 
upon him, which was the pouring out of the ven¬ 
geance of God. It was the wrath of God breaking 
upon—an overwhelming, a bringing of something 
upon the subject, and nothing more. The idea of 
plunging, or putting the subject into, is entirely 
excluded. 

The next place in the Septuagint in which we find 
this word is 2 Kings v. 14:—“Then he [Naaman] 
went down and dipped [ebaptisato'] himself seven 
times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man 
of God.” Br. Fuller lays great stress upon this 
passage, and is amazed that any “candid man” 
can any longer doubt with this instance before 
him. He refers to it on all occasions, and evidently 
regards it as his strongest point. Let us then look 
at it with care. 


108 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


It will be observed that the record says that 
Naaman “baptized himself according to the saying 
of the man of God ” We must, then, ascertain 
what that saying was, and interpret the ebaptisato 
according to the sense of the terms used in the 
command of which the baptism was the fulfillment. 
This is plain common sense:—that if Naaman bap¬ 
tized himself according to the saying of the man of 
God, that “saying of the man of God’’ must con¬ 
tain the true sense in which the word baptizo is 
used. 

Going back, then, a few verses, we read that 
“Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying. Go 
and WASH [lousai] in Jordan seven times, . . . and 
thou shalt be clean [katharisthase']. But Naaman 
was wroth, and went away, and said. Behold, I 
thought, he will surely come out to me, and stand, 
and call on the name of the Lord his God, and 
strike his hand over the place. [It would seem that 
Naaman’s leprosy was confined to one particular 
location on his body.] Are not Abana and Phar- 
par, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters 
of Israel? May I not wash [lousomai] in them and 
BE clean? So ho turned, and went away in a 
rage. And his servants came near, and spake 
unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had 
bid thee do some groat thing, wouldst thou not 
have done it? How much rather, then, when he 
saith to thee, Wash \lousai] and be clean?” 

The saying of the man of God, then, according 
to which Naaman baptized himself, was not a com¬ 
mand to immerse himself totally, but to wash and 
cleanse himself The Greek words in the command 


BAPTIZO IN THE SEPTUAGINT. 


109 


are not hapto and baptizo, but louo and katharizo. 
And, according to Dr. Fuller’s own argument, on 
page 31, we can demonstrate that the prophet’s 
bidding had no sort of reference to immersion. 
What does Dr. Fuller say? how does he reason? 

Jesus could have been at no loss for a word 
clearly to express his meaning. Did he intend 
sprinkling? The word was rantizo. Did he require 
pouringl The word was keo. If wash, nipto, 
[which, by-the-way, according to Dr. Fuller’s 
own authority on page 21, means to wet or wash 
.only the hands.] If bathe, louo. If wimerse or 
dye, hapto. If immerse and nothing else, the word 
was baptizo.” We argue, then, upon Dr. Fuller’s 
ground, if Elisha intended Naaman to immerse 
himself totally and nothing else, the word to ex¬ 
press it was baptizo. But the prophet, according 
to the Seventy, did not use the word baptizo, but 
louo and katharizo. Therefore it inevitably follows, 
from Dr. Fuller’s own showing, that the prophet 
did not intend that Naaman should immerse him¬ 
self And if Elisha did not direct Naaman to 
immerse himself, and ISTaaman’s baptism was 
according to Elisha’s direction, the Seventy have 
either used the word baptizo wrongly, or it does 
not mean immersion and nothing else. We cannot 
conceive how Dr. Fuller, with all his dexterity 
and cunning, is to extricate himself from this 
dilemma. 

But we do not stop with this. We insist that 
louo and katharizo in the prophet’s command must 
give the sense of baptizo, which describes the act 
of Naaman in complying with the command; for 
10 


110 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


it is expressly declared that he baptized himself 
ACCORDING TO THE SAYING OF THE MAN OF GOD.’^ 
There can be no dispute about the fact that hatha- 
rizo means simply to cleanse, especially in the legal 
sense of purification, which was for the most part 
performed by sprinkling or pouring water over the 
subject. And louo evidently means nearly the same 
thing. It is used eight times in the New Testa¬ 
ment, and in no one instance does it convey any 
other meaning than that of cleanse or purify. In 
Titus iii. 5 it denotes the work of God’s Holy 
Spirit in purifying and renewing the heart. In 
Acts xvi. 33 it denotes the act of moistening and 
cleansing wounds inflicted by stripes. In Eev. i. 
5 it denotes the cleansing of the sinner’s conscience 
by the blood of Christ. Porphyry uses it to denote 
the purification of maidens about to be married, by 
sprinkling them with wmter brought in pitchers 
for the purpose; and Basil uses it to denote the 
purification of a sick man by sprinkling with 
water, anointing with oil, and invoking upon him 
the Holy Ghost. Galen’s Lexicon to Hippocrates 
explains it as meaning “not only to wash or bathe, 
but also to moisten, foment, pour, or sprinkle.” 
If, then, the command was simply to wash, cleanse, 
or purify in Jordan’s waters, and if haptizo denotes 
the fulfillment of that command, the point is settled 
that haptizo in this case means nothing more (and 
cannot be assigned any other sense) than simply 
to wash, cleanse, or purify. We challenge Hr. Fuller 
to confine himself to this instance and make any 
thing else out of it. 

How Naaman executed the prophet’s command 


BArTIZO IN THE SEPTUAGINT. 


Ill 


is of no importance. He may have gone into the 
stream of Jordan and literally dipped the affected 
parts which he expected the man of God to touch, 
or he may have sat down to perform the enjoined 
ablution ujion the shore; but, if he even went in 
and totally immersed himself seven times, it does 
not alter the case. There are many ways of wash¬ 
ing ; and it was still a baptism, not because it was 
an immersion, but because it was a xmshing; that 
having been the only idea in the prophet’s mind, 
and the only idea in the mind of the historian 
when he said that Naaman did according to the 
prophet’s saying. 

And we are also fully borne out in this view by 
other versions of the Bible. The old Latin version 
of Jerome, made more than fourteen hundred years 
ago, has lavo where the Seventy have baptizo, —a 
word which means simpl}^ to wash, without pre¬ 
scribing the mode, and, where it takes in any 
allusion to mode, that mode is to besprinkle, or 
to apply the water to the thing laved. It also has 
the judicial sense of expiate and clear. A total 
immersion is quite outside of its common scope. 

The German Bible, pronounced one of the best 
translations that have ever been made, has taufen. 
If Luther had thought that Kaaman’s baptism was 
a total immersion, he certainly would have used 
the word versenken, or untertauchen. 

The Douay Bible says, ‘^He went down and 
WASHED in the Jordan.” And the Coverdale Bible, 
the Geneva Bible, and Matthew’s Bible, all have 
washed'' instead of dipped. 

J^ow, putting all these things together, are we 


112 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


not fully authorized to say that, so far as baptizo 
applies to the cleansing of JSTaaman, it no more 
means total immersion and nothing else” than it 
means sprinkling and nothing else? The fact is, it 
means neither, but simply a cleansing or purification. 
This is all that the prophet told him to do; and 
inspired authority tells us that he did “according 
to the saying of the man of God.’' 

A third passage in the Septuagint in which 
baptizo occurs is Judith xii. 7, where it is said of 
that heroic woman that “ she went out in the night 
into the valley of Bethulia and washed [ebaptizeto'] 
herself in a fountain [paga, — spring'] of water by the 
camp. And when she came out, [Douay version, 
when she came up^] she besought the Lord God of 
Israel to direct her way.” What does this mean? 
Lr. Fuller says, “ She is purifying herself for a 
great and glorious deed.” (P. 39.) Exactly so; 
and that is precisely the meaning of the word in 
this text. The Douay and 'King James versions 
both render it loash. The German version has it 
wusch sich,—washed herself. The ancient Syriac 
renders it by a term signifying to wash. It means 
nothing more than a simple ceremonial cleansing 
or purification. The heroine is contemplating the 
deliverance of her countr}^ from a ruthless invader. 
She wishes to secure the help of Israel’s God. And 
just as in the case of Telemacbus, with waters from 
the hoary sea shed over his hands,— 

“ The royal suppliant to Minerva pray’d,”— 

SO she went fasting to the Bethulian spring to 
purify herself with its untainted waters, fresh from 
their source, the more acceptably to come before 


BAmZO IN THE SEPTUAGINT. 


113 


nei O^rd. All idea of inwiersion in the spring is 
quite out of the question. 

Bur, in order to make the case yield to his tot¬ 
tering cause, Or. Fuller says that this purification 
was performed “in a sequestered valley.” Not so: 
it was peitormed at a spring the camp” or, as 
it is still stronger in the Greek, “ in the camp” — en 
ta paremhola. He says that it was done in the 
privacy of the “night.” So Curtis repeats:—“It 
was by nighty when she would not be observed.” 
But this cannot be proven. The word nux also 
means evening. The German version has it abends; 
that is, evening. And the account stating what 
occurred after the purification had been performed 
says expressly, in the ninth verse, “aSo she came in 
clean, and remained in the tent until she did eat her 
MEAT AT EVENING.” And are we to be told that a 
beautiful and’chaste woman like Judith went out 
among a vast army of rude and unoccupied soldiers 
in the evening before supper-time, and completely 
immersed herself in an open and public spring, and 
that for three successive days? Let the thinking 
judge of the probability of such a story. Dr. 
Arnald, in his commentary on this passage, ex¬ 
presses the greatest astonishment that a woman 
of such beaut}^ could move at all among such a 
camp without encountering insult and violence. 
What, then, would her situation have been if we 
add the bathing of her naked person by immersion 
at nigUtfall in a spring to which the soldiers doubt¬ 
less came to quench their thirst? The thing 
cannot be : and so baptize cannot here mean to 
immerse and nothing else. 

10 * 




114 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

But Dr. Fuller can’t give it up. The passage 
must be made to give baptizo the meaning of im¬ 
merse, even though he should have to interpolate 
the record. And we here, publicly, boldly, and 
with a full understanding of what we are about, 
charge interpolation upon him. Whether he has 
done it ignorantly or intentionally is not for us to 
decide. 

On page 40 of his book he positively asserts that, 
As if to leave no doubt, it is expressly said that she 
CAME OUT OF THE WATER.” He gives quotation 
marks and all, to have us believe that he has lit¬ 
erally transferred these words from the record to 
his pages. But we utterly, peremptorily, and 
without qualification deny that there is any thing 
anywhere in this account, either in Hebrew, in 
Greek, in Latin, in German, or in English, that sa^^s 
aught about coming out of the water” The only 
thing that affords even the remotest hint in that 
direction lies in the English phrase and when she 
came out she besought the Lord.” But a theory 
which interprets this as referring to the watery can¬ 
not stand for a moment. It is nowhere said that 
she ever went into the water; and it is unnatu¬ 
rally violent and altogether gratuitous to say that 
her coming out means a coming “out of the water.” 
What she came out of was, of course, what she 
went into; and it is expressly said that she 
^^went into'the valley of Bethulia.” Her coming 
out was therefore a coming out of “the valley 
of Bethulia.” 

The Vulgate has et ut ascendebat,—and as she 
went up, or, as soon as she went up,—she prayed. 


BAPTIZO IN THE SEPTUAGINT. 


115 


The al'/usion cannot be to any thing hiit her going 
up to her tent. 

The Septuagint has kai hos aneba, edeeto. Aneba 
is one form of the same word used by Xenophon 
to denote a military expedition, —certainly a very 
different thing from an emersion, from a plunge in 
the water. It signifies a going up from one place 
to another. It is used in the New Testament to 
denote Christ’s going up to Jerusalem, going up into 
the mountain to pray, going up into the temple, 
the going up of the disciples to the feast, Peter’s 
going up upon the house-top, and so on. Homer 
uses it again and again to denote the act of pene¬ 
trating into the interior of a country and of ad¬ 
vancing toward a capital. And we avow that 
before any man can find emersion in it he will first 
have to put it there. Its plainest and primary 
meaning is, the going up from one place to another; 
and, as used in the passage before us, it can mean 
nothing more nor less than the going up of Judith 
from the fountain'where she purified herself to the 
tent in which she reposed in the camp of Holo- 
fernes. 

And the German version, if possible, is still more 
conclusive. It cuts off even the last lingering 
shadow of possibility that the phrase might per¬ 
haps refer to a coming out of the water. It ren¬ 
ders it all by the adverb darnach, — afterwards. 
Having purified herself at the fountain ‘^by the 
camp, afterwards,'’ i.e. after her purification had 
been completed, and she was again on her way to 
her allotted place, “ afterwards she prayed to the 


116 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Lord.” The thing is too plain to admit of further 
illustration. 

The fourth and only remaining passage from the 
Scptuagint to be examined, in which baptizo occurs, 
is Ecclesiasticus xxxiv. 25. He that washeth [bap- 
tizomenos'] himself after the touching of a dead body, 
if he touch it again, wdiat availeth his (loutro) 
washing?” 

Here we have two different words referring to 
precisely the same thing, and which, so far as this 
text is concerned, are necessarily exact synonyms 
of each other. We have already proven that louo, 
one of the words here used, denotes the general 
idea of washmg in the sense of purification. It is 
therefore a sufficient injunction upon I)r. Fuller’s 
theory of the meaning of baptizo to know that the 
Seventy here use it as the exact synon 3 ^m of louo. 
For as louo is never used to denote “a total im¬ 
mersion and nothing else,” so baptizo cannot mean 
“a total immersion and nothing else” where it is 
used interchangeably with louo. 

But we go further. The son of Sirach is talking 
about purification from the contaminating touch 
of a dead body. He calls that purification a bap¬ 
tism. And vm now assert that the vital, prominent, 
and essential part of that purification was per¬ 
formed by sprinkling, and by sprinkling alone. Hoes 
any one doubt it, let him read the nineteenth 
chapter of Numbers, where God himself lays down 
the law in this case:—“And whosoever toueheth 
one that is slain with the sword in the open field, 
or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, 
shall be unclean seven da^^s. And for an unclean 


BAPTIZO IN THE SEPTUAGINT. 


117 


person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt 
heifer of purification for sin, and running watei 
shall be put thereto in a vessel, and a clean person 
shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, and sprinkle 
IT upon him that toucheth a hone, or one slain, or one 
dead, or a grave, and the clean person shall sprinkle 
upon the unclean on the third day and on the seventh 
day.” This is the statute of God for the purification 
of a man defiled by touching the dead, and the whole 
of it. The succeeding verses quoted by Dr. Fuller, 
about washing clothes and bathing, refer to the 
clean person who does the sprinkling, and not to 
the one defiled for whom the sprinkling was 
done. Let the reader compare the nineteenth 
with the twenty-first verse, where this bathing is 
expressly referred to the administrator and not 
to the subject, and he will see the truth of our 
statement. Josephus, in a professed and minute 
description of this rite, (Ant. b. 4, c. 4, sec. 6,) 
says nothing about washing or bathing as a part 
of it. Philo, in a similar passage, speaks only of 
sprinkling. Or, if any still doubt, we bring the 
testimony of Paul, who says expressly that it 
was the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean that 
sanctified to the purification of the flesh: Heb. ix. 13. 

Here, then, is a purification from which every 
thing like immersion is utterly excluded,—nay, in 
which sprinkling is the mode explicitly commanded 
by God himself, ‘^The question, then, comes to 
this dilemma,” says Mr. Hall: “either the Jews 
had abandoned the mode of purifying from a 
dead body, as specifically and minutely pointed 
out by God, or here was a baptism by sprinkling.” 


118 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


The demonstration is therefore complete, that 
baptizo, as used in the Septuagint, does not denote 
a total immersion and nothing else,^^ but has as¬ 
signed to it that nobler and higher sense for which 
it was chosen to designate the foundation ordi¬ 
nance of Christianity,—the sense of purification. 

How remarkable that, at the very moment we 
begin to touch upon ground even though but 
remotely connected with Christianity, the word 
that is always used to denote the ordinance of 
baptism at once assumes a settled religious sense, 
from which, when applied to this sacrament, as 
we shall see, it never departs. 


CHAPTEE X. 

BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 

There is still another department of Greek 
writing, outside of the Hew Testament, the ex¬ 
amination of which is particularly pertinent to this 
controversy. We refer to the Christian Greek 
authors and the patristic literature. The Fathers 
for the most part understood and spoke the Greek 
language, and were familiar with the Christian 
acceptation of Greek terms. If they used baptizo 
in a sense different from mere immersion, we may 
be assured that immersion is not its Christian 
meaning. 

We are not now concerning ourselves about 



BxiPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


119 


their frequent practice of administeriug baptism by 
immersion. Dr. Carson agrees that ‘‘the author¬ 
ity of the Fathers on this question is not their 
practice, but their use of the word. On their prac¬ 
tice, says he, “/ should not have the least reli¬ 
ance on any question.'’ (P. 472.) We agree that it 
was very muen the habit in their day to baptize 
by immersion. Hence, if we can show from their 
writings that they understood and used the word 
baptism in a sense other than that of immersion, 
that showing must be particularly strong against 
our Baptist friends, for the reason that it is the 
testimony, to some extent, of immersionists as 
well as Grecians. 

Dr. Carson says of the Fathers that “ they knew 
the meaning of the language wdiich they spoke. 

... To suppose that persons who spoke the 
Greek language might understand their [the 
apostles’] words in a sense different from that 
in which they used them would be to charge the 
Scripture as not being a revelation. Whatever 
was the sense in which the apostles used the 
word must have been known to all who heard 
them or read their writings.” (P. 473.) To the 
writings of these earlier and mostly Greek Chris¬ 
tian authors, then, we carry our inquiry. 

Dr. Carson maintains that “there is not an 
instance in all the Fathers in which baptizo or any 
of its derivatives are used except to signify im¬ 
merse;” that, “without exception, they used the 
word always for immersion.” This he asserts as 
a scholar claiming to be “acquainted with the 
Fathers.” How far this scholarship and acquaint- 


120 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


ance go in this department, and what his sweep¬ 
ing assertion is worth, we shall see presently. 

Dr. Fuller waxes very bold, and defies us to pro¬ 
duce a single instance in which baptizo means 
aught but immerse. We accept his challenge. He 
shall have the instance. He has it already. But 
we will multiply it for him by the production of 
passages, not from the poets and philosophers of 
heathendom, but from those who knew both the 
Scriptures and the Greek language, in which it is 
wholly im})Ossible to assign to this word the 
meaning of “ immerse and nothing else.’^ 

The hrst passage we adduce is from Clemens 
Alexandrinus, p. 387, Lugduni Batav., 1616. He 
is here speaking on the subject of baptism. He 
traces it even in the lustrative rites of the heathen 
world. He says that there is eikoon baptismatoSy 
—a picture, image, representation of baptism, 
which has been handed down from Moses to the 
poets; as, for example, ‘Penelope, having \hu- 
draind] moistened or tcashed herself^ and having on 
clean apparel, prays.'’ (Odyss. iv. 759.) ‘ Tele- 

machus, having [nipto'] washed his hands in the 
hoary sea, prayed to Minerva.^ (Odyss. ii. 261.) 
This was the Jewish custom \hoos baptizesthai] to 
be baptized in this way, even often upon the bed or 
couch.’^ 

This is a passage of great strength, and has 
given to the Baptist champions no little trouble 
since it was first broached by President Beecher. 
Let the reader scrutinize it well. Homer says 
that Penelope moistened or washed herself. The 
word is hudrahio, which conveys no idea of mode. 


BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


121 


The Greek language abundantly sanctions its 
application to pouring or affusion. And this wet¬ 
ting or washing Clement pronounces eikoon bap- 
tismatos, the image of baptism.’^ He must needs, 
therefore, have considered haptizo no more than 
hudrainOy —merely a religious washing, no matter 
how* performed. 

Again: Homer says that Telemachus washed Ms 
hands for prayer. Pope’s version of it is this:— 

“ There, as the waters o’er his hands he shed, 

The royal suppliant to Minerva pray’d.” 

The original word is nipto, which expresses an act 
limited to the hands or feet. Beza denies that it 
ever applies to the whole body. The idea which it 
conveys is simply that of cleansing the part by 
the use of w’ater, poured, sprinkled, or employed 
in any other mode. Pope says that it here means 
poured or shed upon. The hands are specifically 
named. And this religious lustration, which con¬ 
sisted in the mere pouring of water upon the 
hands, Clement calls eikoon haptismatoSy the image 
of baptism.” There was no immersion in this 
case, and, beyond all question, no total immersion; 
and 3 ’et, according to this Father’s sense of the 
w*ord, it w^as a likeness of baptism. By authority 
of Clement, then, baptism is a religious lustration, 
but not necessarily an immersion. 

But this is by no means the whole strength of 
the passage. Clement says that it was the custom 
of the Jew’s (hoos) in like mannery in the same loapy 
TO BE BAPTIZED. The Jew’isli lustrations, then, 
w’hich consisted in mere w’ashings and hand-w’ash- 

II 


122 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

iDgs, by affusion, sprinkling, circumfusion, as well 
as any other mode, were real baptisms, and so 
called by this Greek Father. Is it not puerile, 
then, for any man to assert in the face of such 
facts that haptizo in the Greek language ^‘always 
means immerse and has no other meaning”? 

Yet further: Clement declares that it-was the 
custom of the Jews to be baptized in this way, 
{kai) and, or even, oftentimes upon their bed or 
couch (epi koitae). The Jews were accustomed to 
recline on couches during meals, the same being 
often used to sleep on. These couches were ordi¬ 
narily large enough to hold from three to five 
persons. And it was perhaps when reclining 
thus at meals that the custom was to undergo a 
process of lustration, which Clement here calls 
eing baptized upon their couch. And are we to be 
told that four or five men, upon a couch at dinner, 
were at times immersed while taking their meals? 
Are we to imagine pulleys fixed over the various 
couches in the dining-room, with ropes attached 
to the corners, and a baptistery under the floor, 
with trap-doors opening under the suspended 
guests, to let couches, men, and all down under 
the water as they proceeded to eat! 

But Dr. Carson and Dr. Hague wish to know 
where we learn that koitae is a dinner-couch. They 
saj^, ^‘it is a bed for sleeping on.” Very well: 
only so much the worse for them. Clement says 
they were baptized upon their koitae; and to be 
immersed while lying on their bed for sleep is still 
further out of the question than immersion while 
eating dinner. A yery comfortable night’s rest 


BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


123 


would they have after such a service! Pei'haps 
Dr. Fuller would also call this ^‘delightfully re¬ 
freshing” ! 

But, say our Baptist friends, epi koitae does not 
mean upon a bed, but “on account of a bed;” “bap¬ 
tized on account of a bed” ! Ah, and now it is 
our turn to ask, Where did they learn that? 
Hervetus, in commenting upon this passage in 
Clement, says, “The Jews washed themselves, not 
only at sacrifices, but also at feasts; and this is the 
reason why Clement says that they were 2 '>ui*ified 
or washed upon a couch, that is, a dining-couch or 
triclinium!' And no one will dare to deny that 
the 01 ‘iginal, primary, and pervading sense of epi 
is upon, on, in. To translate it “on account of” is 
far-fetched, quite beyond the ordinary range of 
its meaning, and destructive of the sense of the 
passage, except by supplying an idea the most 
foreign to the whole drift of Clement's remarks. 
In the corrected Latin Syllburg edition of Clemens, 
Hervetus renders it “w lecta”—in or upon a 
resting-place, couch, bed, or dining-sofa. And 
Professor Wilson, of the Eoyal College, Belfast, 
remarks that ^^epi koitae suggests so distinctly the 
relation of place, that to prefer a dilferent meaning 
appears very like going out of one's way to serve 
a purpose.” 

It was the custom of the Jews, then, to be bap¬ 
tized on, in, upon, their dining-couches or beds. 
AVas this done by total immersion? The thing is 
impossible. IIow, then, was it done? AVe reply, 
by sprinkling, circumfiision, or hand-washing; and 
we say so by the authority of the Scriptures them- 


124 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


selves. (See 2 Kings iii. 11; Matt. xv. 2; Mark vii, 
3; John ii. 6.) Immersion is absolutely excluded. 
Yet Clement, who “knew the meaning of the lan¬ 
guage which he spoke,’’ calls it ha^ptizing. If our 
Baptist friends can bring a stronger passage in 
proof of their understanding of haptizo than this 
against them, it yet remains to be produced. 

Our next quotation is from Cyril of Alexandria, 
on Isaiah iv. 4, vol. ii., Paris, 1538. This Father 
speaks of the Jewish rite of sprinkling an unclean 
person with the ashes of a heifer as a baptism. 
His words are, “We have been baptized^ not with 
mere water, nor yet with the ashes of a heifer, 
but with the Holy Spirit and fire.” This passage 
makes the baptism by the ashes of a heifer as 
much a baptism as the baptism by water. What 
then was the baptism with the ashes of a heifer? 
Was it an immersion? We have the authority of 
God that it was not. See Heb. ix. 13: “The ashes 
of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to 
the purifying of the flesh.” The statute of God 
on the subject was, “They shall take of the ashes 
of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and 
running water shall be put thereto in a vessel; and 
a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the 
water, and sprinkle it upon him that touched a 
bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave.” By 
the highest possible authority, then, the purifica¬ 
tion by the ashes of the heifer was a purification 
by sprinkling. It was not an immersion. But 
Cyril says it was a baptism. According to this 
Greek Father, then, immersion was not the mean¬ 
ing of baptizo. Its import is met by a religious 


BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


125 


cleansing in which the specific mode was sprinkling. 
The same author has other passages to the same 
effect. 

Ambrose, vol. ii. p. 333, Paris, 1609, furnishes 
another instance of the use of haptizo to denote a 
religious cleansing without immersion. “For he 
who is baptized, both according to the law and 
according to the gospel, is made clean,—according 
to the law, in that Moses, with a buneh of hyssop, 
SPRINKLED the blood of a lamb.’' There was then a 
baptism according to the Jewish law. Was it an 
immersion? How would it read to say ^’•immersed 
according to the law, in that Moses, with a hunch 
of hyssop, sprinkled the blood of a lamb’'? Is 
sprinkling an immersion? By no means. But 
Ambrose sa^^s it is a baptism. Hence we add his 
authority to that of Clement and Cyril, that bap¬ 
tism and immersion are not synonymous. 

The same Father furnishes us with other like 
instances. In vol. i. p. 356, he calls the application 
of the benefits of Christ’s crucifixion and death, 
baptism; that is, a moral cleansing, forgiveness, 
purification. His words are as follows:—“ Unde sit 
BAPTISM A nisi de cruce Christi, de morte Christi?” 
“Whence is purgation except from the cross of 
Christ, from the death of Christ?” Can baptism 
mean immersion here? Is there any sense in 
talking about “immersion from the cross and 
death of Christ” ? Baptisma here means cleansing, 
to the utter exclusion of all idea of immersion. 

Again, Ambrose says, (Apol. David, sec. 59.) 
“He who desired to be purified with a typical bap¬ 
tism was sprinkled with the blood of a lamb by 


126 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


means of a bunch of hyssop.’^ Was sprinkling 
inimersion? Was sprinkling a type of immersion? 
Neither; but sprinkling was a baptism, and sprink¬ 
ling the blood under the law was a type of baptism 
under the gospel. How ridiculous, then, to insist 
that baptism is “immersion and nothing else”! 

In vol. ii. p. 355, the same Father, taking a gene¬ 
ral survey of the Jewish and heathen absolutions, 
thus sums up the whole matter. “There are 
many kinds of purifications, [baptismatum,'] but 
the apostle proclaims one baptism. Why? There 
are heathen purifyings, \baptismata,'] but they are 
not purifications \baptismata']. Washings they 
are; purifications \baptismata'] they cannot be. 
The body is washed, but sin is not washed away; 
nay, in that washing sin is contracted. There 
were also Jewish purifyings, [baptismata some 
superfiuous, others typical.” Why were these 
Jewish and heathen baptisms no baptisms? Be¬ 
cause “sin is not washed away” in them. But 
whether immersion washes away sin or not, is it 
not still an immersion? Could Ambrose have 
been guilty of saying, “Immersions they are, but 
immersions they cannot be” ? Hoes not every one 
see at a glance that here the word baptism, in the 
very same sentence, has more than one meaning 
and must be rendered washing, purification? 

Let us look next at some instances from Justin 
Martyr. Hr. Carson says, “Justin uses the word 
in the sense of immersion whenever he does use 
it,—never in any other sense.” Let us see, then, 
what sort of reliance is to be placed upon this 
dogmatizer of Tubbermore, 


BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


127 


See Justin’s Dialogue with Tiypho, p. 164, 
London, 1772. lie is speaking of the Jewish 
rites and ceremonies as inadequate to purify a man 
from sin. He is holding up an inward “washing 
of repentance,” as opposed to any outward cere¬ 
monial cleansings. He says, “What is the use of 
that baptism which purifies the flesh and body 
alone? Be baptized as to your soul, from anger 
and from covetousness, from envy and from hatred, 
and, lo! your body is pure.” How, would he have 
us figure to ourselves a man immersing his soul for 
the purification of his body? Can we conceive of 
a man immersing from a thing?— from anger and 
covetousness, from envy and hatred? AYe can 
easily understand how a man may cleanse his soul 
to make his body clean, and how he may be 
cleansed from vice; but immersion will in no way 
fit to this passage. There is no possible room for 
it. Cleansing or purification is here the certain, 
fixed, and only sense of baptizo, and that as given 
by a man who understood both the Scripture and 
the Greek language. 

In another passage, speaking of the purifications 
copied by the heathen from the divine ordinances, 
he says, “The demons, hearing of this washing 
[^louti'on, religious cleansing] proclaimed by the 
prophet, caused those entering into tlieir temples 
to sprinkle themselves ” How, if the demons were 
thus imitating God’s Avashing, as Justin affirms, 
and that divine purifying was a washing by immer¬ 
sion, how is it that they caused their worshipers 
“fo sprinkle themselves” ? Is sprinkling a copy of 
immersion? The demons once proclaimed the 


128 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


divine authority of Jesus. They here proclaim 
that sprinkling is God’s cleansing rite. 

Aij-ain: Dr. Carson admits that Justin ^^some- 
times speaks of circumcision as a baptism” Was 
circumcision an immersion? Who will dare to 
affirm it? It was a bloody rite of purgation,—a 
sign of divine acceptance,—a ceremonial cleansing; 
and for this reason alone could it be called a bap¬ 
tism. And when this Father calls it a baptism, it 
is unanswerable proof that he attached to baptizo 
the idea of a religious purification, to the exclusion 
of immersion. Yet Mr. Carson can assert that 
^‘Justin uses the word in the sense of immersion,— 
never in any other sense” ! How long will Chris¬ 
tian people continue to be led astray by such 
guides? 

We turn next to Tertullian, to inquire what 
meaning he attached to baptizo. De Baptismo, p. 
257, Paris, 1634, he has this passage:—“At the 
sacred rites of Isis, or Mithra, they are initiated 
by a washing; they carry out their gods with 
washings; they expiate villas, houses, temples, 
and whole cities, by sprinkling with water carried 
around. Certainly they are purified in the Appo- 
linarian and Eleusinian rites; and thej’- say that 
they do this to obtain regeneration and to escape 
the punishment of their jierjuries. Also, among 
the ancients, whoever had stained himself with 
murder expiated himself with purifying water. 
In view of these things, we see the zeal of the 
devil in rivalling the things of God, inasmuch as 
he thus also practices baptism among his own 
people.” Here we have a description of the 


BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


129 


various lustrations and expiations performed by 
the devil’s people, not only upon their own bodies, 
but also upon “villas, houses, temples, and whole 
cities” and that sjmnkling with vmter carried 
around” And yet Tcrtullian sums it all up as 
the devil’s “baptism,” \baptisnmm,~\ Will any 
one have the effrontery to say that he meant 
immersion? 

Hear what President Beecher has said upon this 
passage. “Tertullian here traces the purifier, 
water, through all its uses in the heathen world in 
purifying, whether by sprinkling, or in any other 
way, for absolution, or for cleansing. And he 
sums it all up as the devil’s baptism. Words de¬ 
noting sprinkling, or purification, or absolution, 
pervade the whole passage, as lavacrura, lavatio, 
aspergio, purgo, expio, abluo, emiindo, absolve, 
diluo. But no word occurs denoting of necessity 
immersion. Dr. Carson may refer to tingo. 1 
know that he has said, in his work on baptism, 
(p. 65,) ‘Tingo expresses appropriately dipping 
and dyeing, and these only.’ Dr. Carson says this 
with his usual accuracy. Ovid was of a different 
opinion. Speaking of the ocean in a storm, he 
says, ‘videtur aspergine tingere nubes,’ (Met. xi. 
497, 498.) Did Ovid mean that ‘the ocean seems 
to dye the clouds with sjmay,’ or ‘to immerse 
them with spray’? He means plainly ‘to sprinkle 
them with spray.’ He also uses the expression, 
‘tingere corpus aqua sparsa.’ (Fast. iv. 790. See 
Gesner on tingo.) Does this mean ‘to color or to 
immerse the body b}^ sprinkled water’? And what 
mean the common expressions, tingi nardo, tingi 


130 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Pallade, tingi oleo? Is oil a coloring substance? 
or was it customary to be dipped in oil? We read 
of anointing with oil, or of pouring oil on the 
head. Who has recorded the custom of dipping 
in oil? Hilarius too, on Acts xix. 4, speaking of 
a spurious baptism, says, ‘non tincti, sed sordidate 
sunt.’ Here the antithesis demands of us to 
translate, ‘They were not purified, but polluted.^ 
Tingo, then, means to sprinkle, to wet or moisten, 
to wash, to purify; and in reference to baptism 
this last is its appropriate sense. Ho word, then, 
occurs, denoting immersion. All kinds of purifi¬ 
cation and expiation are spoken of, including pro¬ 
minently those by sprinkling, and all are summed 
up as the devil’s baptism, i.e. the devil’s purification 
or absolution, and the closing contrast rests for all 
its force on assigning to the word this sense.” 
(Baptism, its Import and Modes, pp. 165, 166.) 

So again Tertullian (p. 357) says, speaking of 
the water and the blood, “Hus d,uo baptismos de 
vulnere perfossi lateris emisit,” “ these two baptisms 
he poured forth from the wound of his pierced 
side.” Hid he mean to say that Christ poured 
forth two immersions from his wounded side, or 
that he sent forth two purifications? 

We therefore set down Tertullian, along -with 
Clement, Cyril, Ambrose, and Justin Martyr, as a 
clear and decisive witness that, in its scriptural 
and Christian sense, baptizo does not mean mere 
immersion, but a religious washing, cleansing, or 
purification, even to the exclusion of immersion. 

We turn next to Origen. In his Seventh Homily 
on the 6th of Judges, he says, “ The outpouring of 


BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


131 


his [Christ’s] blood is denominated a baptism/^ 
Who ever denominated the outpouring of Christ’s 
blood an immersion? Would he not be denomi¬ 
nated a fool who should apply to it such a term? 
It was not an immersion. It neither immersed 
Christ nor anybody else. Yet Origen approves 
of its being called a baptism. It was an exjnation, 
a jmrgation of sin, a moral and judicial cleansing; 
and this is what Tvas here meant by the word 
baptism. 

The same Father, in his notes on Matt. xx. 21, 
22, says again, “Martyrdom is rightfully called a 
baptism.” But is martyrdom a fluid in which one 
can be dipped? Can we conceive of an immersion 
in martyrdom? The ancients believed in a puri¬ 
fication by martyrdom. They considered death 
endured for Christ an entire purgation of any 
defects or sins that may have attached to the 
man before his death. They regarded it as a 
cleansingj and hence called it a baptism. They 
never dreamed of regarding it as an immersion. 

Again: in John i. 25, the Jews are represented 
as asking the forerunner of our Lord, “ Why bap- 
tizest thou, then, if thou be not that Christ, nor 
Elias, neither that prophet?” And the question is 
thus referred to by Origen in his comment:— 
“What makes you think that Elias when he 
comes will baptize, who, in Ahab’s time, did not 
[himself] baptize the wood upon the altar, which 
required washing in order to be burnt up, when 
the Lord should reveal himself by fire? For ho 
ordered the priests to do that \i.e. baptize the 
wood] not only once, for he says, ^Do it the 


132 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


second Now, what was the transaction 

here referred to? We have it in 1 Kings xviii.:— 
^^And Elijah took twelve stones, and with the 
stones he built an altar; and he made a trench 
about the altar. And he put the wood in order 
[on the altar, of course], and cut the bullock in 
pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill 
four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt 
sacrifice, and on the wood. And he said, Do it 
the second time. And they did it the second 
time. And he said. Do it the third time. And 
they did it the third time. And the water ran 
round about the altar.’^ This is the entire and 
minute account. And what was it that Elijah 
commanded the priests to do? The answer is 
plain :—to 'pour out water upon the bullock, on the 
wood, on the altar, which was built of twelve 
stones and surrounded with a trench. The mode 
prescribed was pouring upon, and the circumstances 
demonstrate that the result could not have been 
immersion. Yet Origen pronounces it a baptism. 
We add Prof Wilson’s remarks upon this fact:— 
‘‘Let it be observed, we here come into contact 
with the most learned Greek Father, and one of 
the most accomplished Biblical scholars of the 
ancient Church. To tax such a witness with igno¬ 
rance of the circumstances embraced in his evi¬ 
dence, or of the language in whose varied litera¬ 
ture he stood so pre-eminent, would be extreme 
and unaccountable fatuity. Origen knew, as well 
as any modern Baptist knows, that Elijah com¬ 
manded his attendants to fill the barrels with 
water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the 


BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


133 


wood. The author of the Hexapla had carefully 
studied his Bible, and entered profoundly and 
minutely into its different peculiarities of thought 
and forms of expression. How invaluable, then, 
is the testimony when a writer of such undoubted 
attainments identifies the command to pour water 
upon the wood with a command to baptize! Elijah 
did not himself baptize, for he ordered the priests 
to do that. To do what? To pour water on the 
wood upon the altar; and this, in the estimation 
of the most distinguished Greek Father, was bap¬ 
tism! Comment may succeed in diluting, but is 
incompetent to strengthen, the force of a testimony 
so decided and unexceptionable. That in regard 
to the meaning of baptism it utterly breaks away 
from the trammels of an exclusively modal appli¬ 
cation is clear as the noonday sun.^^ (Infant Bap¬ 
tism, pp. 331, 332.) 

But Dr. Fuller cannot give up his precious and 
refreshing dip. He asks, (p. 30,) What was the 
idea in Origen’s mind? It was an immersion”! 
Dr. Fuller says, It was the complaint of a writer 
that his opponent did not know when a thing was 
proved.” Will he just put a pin here and make 
the proper application of his remark? 

In Eolith’s Eeliqui 80 Sacra), vol. iii. p. 48, a 
passage occurs from Hicephorus, also one of the 
Greek Fathers, in which he describes a baptism. 
It is in these words:—“He [the man], expecting 
to die; asked to receive the water; i.e. to be bap¬ 
tized. And he baptized him, even upon his couch 
on which he lay.” Did he immerse him lying on 
his bed? Yes, say our Baptist friends; for bap- 
12 


134 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

tizo always means imraerse.^^ But in this they are 
much wiser than JSTicephorus; for he says ^‘he bap¬ 
tized him’^ in a specific manner, {perichutheuta,') 
pouring upon, by affusion.’’ There was no 
immersion about it; but this Greek Father says it 
was a baptism. Was he ignorant of what baptism 
meant? 

In a paper ascribed to Athanasius, found in the 
works of John of Damascus, it is said that “John 
was baptized [ebaptisthae] by placing his hand on 
the divine head of his Master.” Was he immersed 
by putting his hand on the Savior’s head? If not, 
here is another baptism without immersion,— a 
perfect “ dry dip.” The writer meant to say that 
John was purified, cleansed, by his contact with 
Jesus; and that cleansing he expressed by the 
word baptizo. 

Anastasius {Biblo. Patrum, vol. v. p. 958) speaks 
of baptism as poured into water-pots, and of water- 
pots as baptized by pouring baptism into them. 
Can immersion be poured? And he also speaks 
of this very transaction as a type of the baptism 
of the Gentiles. Did he mean that the Gentiles 
were to be immersed by pouring immersion upon 
them? Anastasius meant to say that these water- 
pots were cleansed, or purified, by pouring a puri¬ 
fier—that is, water—into them; and baptizo is his 
word for it. He used it to express purification 
and cleansing. 

Eusebius {Hist. Ecc. lib. 6, cap. 4) says of a 
female catechumen who was burned before re¬ 
ceiving water-baptism, “ She received the baptism 
which is by fire, and departed from this life.” Did 


BAPTIZO IN THE FATHERS. 


135 


she receive the immersion which is by fire? Where 
do we read of any such patristic rite as that of im¬ 
mersion by fire ? Eusebius evidentl}^ intended to 
say that she was cleansed or purified by her martyr¬ 
dom; and, according to his understanding of the 
Greek, baptizo adequately expressed this meaning. 

In the fiftieth canon of the Apostolic Constitu¬ 
tions, as they are called, the phrase tria baptis- 
mata occurs. On this Zonaras and Balsamon 
thought themselves called on to make a note to in¬ 
form the reader that in this case baptisma means 
immersion. The words of Balsamon are, “ It 
seems to me that baptismatu is to be taken for 
immersions here.^' Indeed! Why, if it always 
means immerse and nothing else, both the note 
and this modest expression of opinion are quite 
out of place. Why stop to inform us that baptizo 
here, as it seemed to him, was to be taken for 
immersion if it never had any other meaning? 
These notes are proof that immersion was not 
its common meaning in Christian Greek, but a 
sense so remote as not likely to be at all hit on 
by a common Christian reader. 

What shall we say, then, to these things? Is 
not the point made out and proven beyond all 
controversy that immersion is not the sense of 
baptizo in Christian Greek ? We have shown that 
the religious washing of Penelope, and the wetting 
of the hands of Telemachus, and the lustrations 
of the Jews reclining on their couches, and the 
sprinkling of the ashes of a burnt heifer, and the 
sprinkling of a lamb’s blood with a bunch of hyssop, 
are called baptisms, and given as types of the Chris- 


136 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


tian sacrament of baptism. We have shown that 
the cleansing derived from the cross and death of 
the Savior, the purifying of the soul from anger, 
covetousness, envy, and hatred, the sprinklings 
of water in religious service hy the heathen, the 
purgation of circumcision, the pouring out of 
Christ’s blood, the supposed purification hy mar¬ 
tyrdom, the pouring out of water upon a sacrifice 
on the altar, the baptism of a man on his bed b}^ 
affusion, the purification of John by touching 
Christ’s head, the cleansing of pots by pouring 
water into them,—cases in which all idea of im¬ 
mersion is entirely excluded,—all are denoted by 
baptizo in one or the other of its forms, and that 
too by great Christian teachers in various periods 
of the early Church, most of whom were native 
Greeks, who must have known the meaning of the 
language which they spoke. Nay, we have shown 
that certain ancient Greek scholars thought it 
necessary to insert notes in a certain place to 
keep the reader advised that there baptizo meant 
immerse. And how any man can rise up in the 
face of all this and say that this word always 
means immersion, and never any thing else, is a 
thing which we know not how to understand. It 
is an awful stifling and suppression of the truth. 
And, if that is being ^‘a Baptist on principle,’' may 
the Lord have mercy upon those who are Baptists 
“in sectarianism and bigotry”I 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


13T 


CHAPTEE XI. 

BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT-PRELIMINARY 

QUESTION. 

We are now about to enter within the Xew 
Testament, to see what it can teach us about 
baptizo and its cognate words, and whether it 
furnishes any thing to prove that its specific and 
only meaning is immerse. But, before entering 
directly upon this department of our investigation, 
we desire to raise and explain a preliminary ques¬ 
tion, which enters into it very deeply, and by a 
proper undei*standing of which we will so clear 
our way as to be less subject to interruptions. 

Most of the passages in the New Testament in 
which baptize occurs, without reference to John’s 
baptism or to the Christian sacrament, refer to the 
purifications and lustrations enjoined in the law of 
Moses. It therefore becomes exceedingly import¬ 
ant to know exactly what those purifying ordi¬ 
nances of Moses were; for it is by the character 
of those Jewish rites that we are to determine the 
general signification of the words which the writers 
of the New Testament employ to designate them. 
If they were certainly and clearly nothing but 
total immersions, then the word baptize, when used 
by the inspired penman to designate them, must 
12 » 


138 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


mean a total immersion and nothing else; and so, 
on the other hand,, if thej^ were simple expiations 
or legal purifications, most of which were to be 
performed by sprinkling, and the rest by simple 
washing or bathing, without reference to mode, 
then baptizo, when used to designate them, must 
take the general scope of purification as its great 
and leading idea, without being limited to sprink¬ 
ling, perfusion, hand-washing, or immersing, but 
comprehending all these modes. 

What, then, is the fact with reference to this 
matter? Dr. Fuller nowhere fairly meets this 
inquiry. He proceeds as if it were a thing entirely 
settled and universally agreed, that all the purifi¬ 
cations of the Mosaic law, designated in the New 
Testament by baptizo and baptismos, were total 
immersions and nothing else. Here and there, as 
occasion seems to demand, and where nothing else 
would save his cause, he throws in a quotation or 
two from authors who had before them a very 
different subject of inquiry, and some of them 
from books which we fear he never saw, all to 
leave the impression upon his reader’s mind that 
all these legal baptisms were clearly, decidedly, 
and on all hands admitted to be nothing but total 
immersions! 

We propose, then, to brush away these cobwebs 
of a perveried erudition; and, in doing so, we will 
go at once to the high, pure, and infallible authority 
of Grod’s own word, leaving Dr. Fuller with Maimo- 
nides and the Targums, groping his way amid the 
traditions of the elders, for the sake of which he is 
not the first to set aside the commandment of God. 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 139 

We deny—and we challenge the production of 
scriptural proof to the contrary—that there is any¬ 
where in the Mosaic ritual any law enjoining upon 
the Jews the necessity of totally immersing them- 
selves. In all the five books of Moses, so far as we 
have learned, the Hebrew word for immerse (thabal) 
is not used in one single instance where the washing 
and purification persons is enjoined, nor any other 
word of corresponding import. Hr. Carson is re¬ 
luctantly compelled to admit this fact. “ I admit,’^ 
says he, “ that the Hebrew modal verb is not used 
with respect to persons.’’ (P. 443.) It follows, 
then, that no stronger word than the general term 
rahatz is used in the Jewish law for any of the 
lustrations of men therein enjoined. 

This word rahatz is rendered in our English 
Bible by the word wash, sometimes bathe. Hr. 
Puller admits and contends that the command to 
wash is not a command either to sprinkle, pour, or 
dip; that “it is a command to Avash and nothing 
else/’ and that washing is more than, and may be 
performed without, either sprinkling, or pouring, or 
dipping.” (P. 15.) We argue, then, as these Le- 
vitical baptisms Avere mere washings and nothing 
else, so far as God’s injunction goes, they were not 
immersions, any more than sprinklings or any 
other special mode of purifying with Avater. 

The word bathe, which occurs in a few cases in 
the English version of these laws of Levitical puri¬ 
fications, might at first seem to indicate that they 
were to be performed by immersion. But in the 
original the word is ahvays rahatz, the same that 
is rendered wash. Neither does bathe necessarily 


140 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


convey the idea of immersion. It is from the Saxon 
baihian, which means simply to wash. It contains 
no indication of mode. We may bathe by sprink¬ 
ling, rubbing, or suffusion, as well as by plunging. 
We have many more shower-baths and sponge- 
baths than plunge-baths. To be bathed in tears 
certainly does not mean totally immersed in tears. 
To bathe a wound is not to immerse it, but to 
moisten it with lotion or to wash it. 

Now, we assert that if any of these Levitical 
lustrations were total immersions and nothing else, 
that fact must be found in the Hebrew word rahatz; 
for this is the only word by which they are signi¬ 
fied in all of those cases where the express mode 
of the purification is not given. This word is 
usually rendered wash in the English Bible. How 
much of an ablution is properly implied by the 
term,’’ Professor Bush remarks, ‘‘ it is difficult to 
say. That it does not indicate a complete im¬ 
mersion of the body in water would seem evident 
from the fact that we read of no provision being 
made for such a rite, either in the holy place or in 
the court of the tabernacle.” In the Septuagint it 
is sometimes rendered by louo, which, as we have 
seen, means simply to cleanse or wash, sometimes 
by nipto, which means hand-washing, and some¬ 
times hj pluno, which has only the general signifi¬ 
cation of wash, rinse, or wet. None of these 
words prescribe mode, and no more mean to im¬ 
merse than they mean to pour upon, or to sprinkle, 
or to apply water in any other manner for the 
purpose of cleansing. 

To obtain a clear conception of the meaning and 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


141 


scope of rahatZy and to see how far it is from de¬ 
noting immersion and nothing else, let the reader 
examine the following passages, in which it is 
used:— 

^‘Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and 
wash [rahatz~\ your feet.’" (Gen. xviii. 4.) 

^‘And he entered into his chamber and wept 
there; and he washed \rahatz'\ his face and went 
out.’^ (Gen. xliii. 30, 31.) 

^‘And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces and 
wash [rahatz'l the inwards of him.’’ — (Exodus 
xxix. 17.) 

‘‘I will wash [rahatz'] my hands in innocency.” 
(Isa. xxvi. 6.) 

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall he clean; 
wash [rahatz'] me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” 
(Ps. li. 7.) 

I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed 
[rahatz] my hands in innocency.” (Ps. Ixxiii. 13.) 

Wash [rahatz] ye; make you clean; put away 
the evil.” (Isa. i. 16.) 

When the Lord shall have washed away [rahatz] 
the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have 
purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst 
thereof by the spirit of judgment and burning.” 
(Isa. iv. 4.) 

Jerusalem, wash [rahatz] thine heart from 
wickedness, that thou mayest be saved.”— 
(Jer. iv. 14.) 

For though thou wash [rahatz] thee with nitre, 
and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is 
marked before me, saith the Lord.” (Jer. ii. 22.) 

And, if any one is not satisfied with these quota- 


142 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

lions, let him take a Hebrew Concordance and 
trace this word through the whole of the Old 
Testament, and he will fii^d that it is used over 
and over to denote the washing of any thing ,—of 
the feet, hands, face, body, and mind,— and that 
without the remotest allusion to the mode in 
which it was to be done. It is a word which has 
in itself no reference to mode. It contemplates 
only an effect to be reached by the use of a fluid, 
without any regard to the manner of that use, 
■whether by friction, pouring, sprinkling, soaking, 
or plunging. 

We wish it, therefore, to be distinctly under¬ 
stood, and thoroughly impressed upon the mind, 
that this word rahatz, the meaning of which is 
simply to wash or cleanse, no matter in what 
mode, is the word used by the Spirit of God in all 
those passages of the Mosaic law where bathing 
and washing are enjoined, and upon which Hr. 
Fuller relies so confidently as indicating immer¬ 
sion and nothing else. We insist that they were 
no more immersions than they were pourings, be¬ 
cause the word which designates them means as 
much to pour upon as to immerse, and is as com¬ 
pletely fulfilled by the one as by the other. 

Such, then, is the exact state of the case with 
regard to those Levitical lustrations in which 
bathing is spoken of 

But, in addition to this argument from the word 
rahatz, we remark further that, under all those 
circumstances upon which Hr. Fuller dwells as 
establishing that these bathings were performed 
by immersion, we have positive proof that they 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


143 


were not performed by immersion. Take the case 
of the young man spoken of in Tobit vi. 2. He 
was out upon a journey; he had encamped by 
the river-side; and (katehe) he went down to 
wash himself. This word katehe —he went down — 
is precisely the same, and used here under pre¬ 
cisely the same circumstances, as in the case of 
Haaman and Philip and the eunuch, where Dr. 
Fuller lays so much stress upon it. It is a word 
in which he finds a world of force and argument 
when spoken with reference to an approach to¬ 
ward the water. Haaman {katehe) went down and 
washed in Jordan. Philip and the eunuch (kate* 
hesan) went down into the water. And this is to 
prove to us that they were immersed. Well, just 
so this young traveller (katehe) went down to wash 
in the Tigris. Did he immerse himself? Was 
the submersion of his body the mode in which his 
ablution was performed ? Upon Dr. Fuller’s argu¬ 
ment we would say, most unquestionably, yes. 
But let us not be so hasty and confident in our 
conclusions. The record says, katehe periklu- 
SASTHAi, he went down and washed himself all 
around; just as a man would stand in a stream 
and throw the water up on all sides of his body 
and thoroughly rub himself clean. 

Here, then, is a case to explain what the Jews 
understood by those injunctions of the law pro¬ 
viding that persons should ^‘wash their flesh,” or 
bathe themselves in water,”—a case where the 
circumstances were such that, if immersion had 
been contemplated, immersion certainly would 
have been performed,—a case which at once 


144 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

breaks the force of Dr. Fuller’s argument on the 
word katehe, and completely annihilates what he 
has built upon the word bathe. We care not 
whether the story be true or false: Tobit is not 
an inspired book; but its historical details may 
still be true. Whether it be fact or fiction, it is 
equally in point to illustrate the ideas, the man¬ 
ners, and the customs of the age in which it was 
written, and is of more value for such a purpose 
than the' sayings of a thousand Babbis of com¬ 
paratively modern times. 

And, in order that there may be no room for 
doubt upon the meaning of periklusasthai, (from 
perikluzo,) we adduce the following instances:— 

Aristotle applies it to the washing of children:— 
to paidion hudati perikluzein, to wash the child all 
around with water.’’ 

It is used by Euripides to denote the washing 
of the body with water from the sea, where he 
applies nipto to the same operation,— nipto, accord¬ 
ing to Dr. Fuller’s own authority, on page 21, de¬ 
notes hand-washing, and not a total immersion. 

In Lucian, V. H., 1, 31, it is applied to an 
object wet or sprinkled on all sides with spray by 
rapid motion in water. 

Plutarch uses kluzo to denote the cleansing of 
the system from bile by the use of purgative 
medicines; also, with the preposition {apo) from, 
to express the washing off of blood from armor 
that had been used in battle. 

Pollux gives it as the synonym of plunein, 
hruptein, and kathairein, and their compounds with 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


145 


dia, apo, and ek, —all of which is quite inconsistent 
with the idea of immersion. 

And Stevens, Scapula, Ernesti, Iledericus, Pas- 
sow, Donnegan, and, as far as -we know, all the 
lexicographers,giveas the washing around 
the person or thing which is the subject, so as to 
eifect the most thorough cleansing. 

This young man, then, even when he was at the 
river-side, after (Jiatehe) he went down as Naaman 
and the eunuch {katebe) went down, and that for the 
express purpose of purifying himself,—when every 
thing that Dr. Fuller relies on to prove an immer¬ 
sion was there,— did not immerse himself, but {peri- 
klusasthai) with his hands thoroughly washed himself 
all around. 

So much for those Levitical purifications in 
which washing and bathing are concerned. But 
there were others, in which the mode is particu¬ 
larly designated. It appertains to our purpose to 
say a word or two about these. 

And foremost and above all stands the great 
catharism, or expiation, of which we have an ac¬ 
count in the twelfth chapter of Exodus, and which 
has been kept as an annual observance by the 
children of Israel for the last three thousand years. 
Ambrose, as we have seen, calls it a baptism. It 
was a holy ordinance of expiation, cleansing from 
sin and exempting from death, as it pointed to the 
great spiritual purgation effected by the blood- 
shedding of that Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sin of the world. It was ordained as a statute 
forever among the generations of Israel. It pointed 
back to their redemption from Egypt and its 
13 


146 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


destruction, and forward to that still more glo¬ 
rious expiation effected by Jesus on the cross. It 
was among all the Jewish rites by eminence a 
catharism, a cleansing, a covering up and washing 
aw^ay of sin. A more striking ease of absolution 
is not contained in the ancient Scriptures. How, 
then, was it to be performed? Will any one pre¬ 
tend to say that there was any bathing, washing, 
or immersion about it? A spotless lamb was to be 
slain, and its blood was to be struck or sprinkled 
upon the lintel and side-posts of the door. God 
saw those stains of blood and was satisfied; and 
the hand of destruction and death was restrained 
as it passed. 

One of the greatest uncleannesses among the 
Jews was the dreadful disease of leprosy. God 
also gave them special laws to be observed in 
purifying themselves from it. This constituted 
one of their most solemn purifications. And so 
far as the official and social act of this purification, 
as performed by an administrator, was concerned, 
it was done solely by sprinkling upon the sub¬ 
ject the blood of a turtle-dove or pigeon. (See 
Lev. xiv.) 

Another uneleanness under the Mosaic law was 
contact with the dead. The mode of its purgation 
is also clearly given:—“ They shall take of the 
ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, 
and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel; 
and a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it 
in the water, and sprinkle it upon him that touched 
a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave.^^ 
(Hum. xix. 17,18.) 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


147 


Another of the Levitical purifications was that at 
the ordination and induction of the Levites to the 
office of priests. In Numbers viii. 3, 7 the mode 
of doing it is explicitly given:—Take the Levites 
and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto 
them to cleanse them: Sprinkle water of purifying 
upon them.” Cyprian, in his sixty-ninth epistle, 
also adduces this very passage in proof of what 
is the scriptural mode of baptism. (Oxford, 1844, 

p. 228.) 

As to the other and more familiar lustrations of 
the Jews, a correct idea of the mode of their perform¬ 
ance may be obtained from what is said in John ii. 
6, in the account of the miracle at the marriage in 
Cana:—“And there were set there six water-pots 

of stone, AFTER THE MANNER OF THE PURIFYING OF 
THE Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.” 
Surely, if manner of the purifying of the Jews” 
vas adequately provided for in a few water-jars, 
the contents of which could be entirely drunk up 
by way of a supplement to a wedding-feast, those 
purifications were, at any rate, not performed by 
immersion. An allusion to the mode of these 
ordinary ablutions is also found in 2 Kings iii. 11, 
where Elisha is characterized as he “ who poured 
water on the hands of Elijah;” i.e. the servant who 
assisted the prophet in his purifications. 

We also deem it worth}^ of remark that, in that 
Orient world where customs never change, we 
still find some remains of these ceremonial puri¬ 
fications and of the manner in which they were 
performed. The Mussulman, seated on the edge of 
bis sofa, has a vessel placed before him on a largo 


148 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


red cloth. A servant on the right pours out the 
water for his master’s use, and another on the left 
stands ready with the drying-towel. The devotee 
begins the service by bareing his arms to the 
elbows. He applies the water to his hands, mouth, 
nostrils, and forehead, repeating his prayers. He 
then rises up under the belief that he is pure. 
May not this also throw light upon ^^the manner 
of the purifying of the Jews,” from whom Mahomet 
and his people borrowed so many of their sacred 
ceremonies ? 

Such, then, were the catharisms and lustrations 
prescribed in the Levitical code and performed by 
the Jews in the Savior’s time. If there were any 
others performed in any way different from those 
which we have named, we should like to have 
them pointed out to us, not from Maimonides, who 
lived but 650 years ago, or from Yatablus, who 
may still be giving Hebrew lessons to the students 
of Paris, but from the laws of Moses or from 
authentic records written by men cotemporaneous 
with Christ and his apostles. We do not pretend 
to deny, indeed, that many of these Levitical ablu¬ 
tions, when every thing else was convenient and 
favorable, were perhaps performed by immersion. 
This may have been; and thus we would account 
for the sayings of those men whom Hr. Fuller has 
quoted in his book. Hut we do most positively 
deny that a total immersion of the body was an 
essential part of any of them, whilst many of them 
were, by express injunction of God, to be performed 
by sprinkling alone. 

We have already detained the reader longer 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


149 


upon this point than we designed; but the great 
importance of it in determining the New Testa¬ 
ment use of baptizo and its derivative haptismoSj 
will readily be seen. It is with reference to these 
rites that these words are used. The nature of 
these rites must therefore determine the meaning 
of these words. And what shall be said of Dr. 
Fuller’s theory that baptizo denotes a total im¬ 
mersion and has no other meaning/’ when we 
make it appear that Paul, by inspiration of God, 
sums up all these ancient catharisms and lustra¬ 
tions as so many different baptisms? 

Let the reader turn, then, to the ninth chapter 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The sacred writer 
there sets out to give an account of the rites and 
ceremonies of the Mosaic law. He is talking of these 
rites and ceremonies, not as they applied to cups 
and pots and other inanimate things, but as they 
applied to the persons of the worshipers and of 
their efficacy to ^^make perfect as pertaining to 
the conscience.” He mentions expressly the legal 
abstinences and offerings, the sprinkling of the 
blood of expiation by the priest, and the sprink¬ 
ling of the ashes of a heifer upon the unclean. 
And in verse 10 he takes them all up in one 
mental grasp and finds them all comprehended 
monon epi bromasi kai pomasi, kai diaphorois bap- 
TiSMOis; that is to say, only in meats, and drinks, 
and DIVERS baptisms.” 

Here we have it, plain, unequivocal, staring 
every man full in the face, that, with the excep¬ 
tion of distinctions in meats and drinks, the whole 
round of the Levitical purifications, from the 
13 * 




150 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

sprinkling of blood by the high-priest in the holy 
of holies to the sprinkling of the ashes of the 
burnt heifer on the bodies of the unclean, stood 
only in” and by inspiration of the great God him¬ 
self are called, baptisms —diaphorois baptismois. 

What can be clearer than this? What more 
conclusive? Is it not demonstration itself? 


CHAPTEE XII. 

BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT—JEWISH LUS¬ 
TRATIONS. 

We have now shown that the purifications and 
expiations enjoined in the Jewish law were not 
immersions, but either sprinklings or simple wash¬ 
ings, ordinarily performed under circumstances 
where immersion Avas quite out of the question. 
We have also seen that the inspired writer in He¬ 
brews sums up all these Levitical purifications in 
the one word baptisms. We can conceive of no 
stronger proof to show that this word does not and 
cannot always mean immerse and nothing else. 
The sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb on 
the doors certainly was not an immersion; neither 
was the sprinkling of the ashes of the red heifer 
on the unclean an immersion. The sprinkling of 
the blood of a young pigeon upon the recovering 
leper was not an immersion. The cleansing of the 
Levites by sprinkling ‘Gvater of purifying upon 



BAPT120 IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


151 


them” was not an immersion. Elisha’s pouring 
of water on the hands of Elijah was not an im¬ 
mersion. <‘The manner of the purifying of the 
Jews/’ as indicated by the ‘<six water-pots of 
stone,” in which the Savior’s first miracle was 
wrought, was not by immersion. And even those 
more thorough washings of the flesh and bathings, 
all of which are denoted by the word rahatz, were 
not necessarily immersions any more than hand¬ 
washings. It is a fact, wdiich cannot be denied, 
that there is not a personal immersion required in 
all the Mosaic law. There were, however, many 
lustrations and cleansings enjoined; and in most 
of these the mode also was given in the same law 
that enjoined them. That mode was sprinklmg. 
And yet, in the ISTew Testament, inspired authority 
calls them all baptisms. 

Besides, the very epithet which the apostle uses 
to describe these baptisms shows that he did not 
mean immersions. He denominates them diapho- 
rois, — different, diverse, distinguishable the one from 
the other. An immersion is an immersion; and 
one immersion for purification is just like all other 
immersions for purification. Such immersions were 
not diverse or various, either in act, in circum¬ 
stances, or in end. One is a perfect facsimile of 
the other. There is no diversity about them. But 
the baptisms of which the apostle is speaking he 
characterizes expressly as diaphorois baptismois — 
DIVERS BAPTISMS. If he meant divers immersions, 
they that so understand him are bound to show 
the diversity. They have never done it; and, 
taking the word in that sense, they never can do 


152 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED, 


it. But, taking baptisms here in the wider and 
more natural sense of katharizo, —to purify and 
expiate,—the diversity spoken of is' at once obvious. 
Some were performed by the use of blood, some by 
the use of ashes, and others by the use of water. 
In some the performance was by sprinkling, in» 
some by hand-washing, in others by pouring 
water on the hands, and perchance in a few cases 
by immersion. This forms the variety. And still 
they were all baptisms. The sprinklings with 
ashes were baptisjns, expressly so called by Cyril 
of Alexandria, who lived within a few hundred 
years of the apostles; and the sprinklings with 
blood were baptisms, so more than once declared 
by Ambrose, who lived still nearer to the apos¬ 
tolic age; and the various lustrations, including 
the washing of hands and other 'water-applications, 
were baptisms, so pronounced by Clement of Alex¬ 
andria, who lived within one hundred years of the 
death of St. John; and all of them together were 
baptisms, so declared by authority which could not 
err, even by the inspired writer of the Epistle to 
the Hebrew’s. Is it not as plain then as language 
can make it that they w’ere baptisms, not because 
they were immersions, for they were not im¬ 
mersions, but baptisms in the only true religious 
sense of the word, because they were purificationsP 
In Mark vii. 4 we have another instance of the 
use of baptizo in which we must assign to it this 
same signification. “And when they come from 
the market, except they wash \baptisontai\ they 
eat not. And many other things there be which 
they have received to hold, as the washing [bap^ 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


153 


tismous] of cups, and pots, and brazen vessels, and 
tables” 

Dr. Fuller’s position is, that an entire immersion 
belongs to the nature of baptismthat “ haptizo 
contains the idea of a complete immersion under 
water;” that ^‘it alioays denotes a total immersion” 
(Pp. 19, 23.) Of course, then, if his position is 
true, it must hold good in this case; and when it 
is said that the Pharisees never eat after returning 
from the market until they have baptized themselves, 
it must mean that they totally hnmersed themselves. 
Did they, then, totally immerse themselves? He 
quotes fourteen authorities on this point: quite a 
formidable array, surely. But two of these very 
authorities, in the very passages quoted, speak only 
of washings, without saying one word about the 
mode in which they were to dQ done; and seven 
more of these same authorities—Campbell, Bux- 
torf, Wetstein, Hosenmiiller, Kuinol, Spencer, and 
Lightfoot—say most explicitly that these Pharisaic 
purifications after return from market were only 
washings of the hands! So that seven out of twelve 
of his own witnesses, and those the most reliable, 
positively declare that these Pharisaic baptisms 
were not total immersions, but hand-washings. 

Hor will it meet the case for Dr. Fuller to say 
or to prove that these hand-washings were im¬ 
mersions of the hands. The baptisms are predi¬ 
cated of ^^the Pharisees and all the Jews,” not of the 
hands of the Pharisees and Jews. ‘^And when they 
come from the market, except they wash [bapti- 
sontai] they eat not.” The baptism is the baptism 
of the same that went to market, that returned 


Ib4 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

from market, and that ate. The same nominative 
stands for all these verbs. Certainly it was not 
the hands alone that went to market, nor the hands 
alone that returned from market, nor the hands 
alone that ate. ^‘The Pharisees and all the Jews’' 
constitute the subject of whom these things are 
alleged; and Dr. Fuller can no more exempt all 
but hands from the force of haptisontai than he can 
exempt all but hands from the eating and returning 
from market. It was the Pharisees that ate, and 
the Pharisees that returned from market, and it 
was the Pharisees that baptized themselves. And 
so, if that baptism was performed by a simple 
washing of the hands, no matter whether they 
were steeped in water, or whether water was 
poured, or sprinkled, or rubbed upon them, it was 
not a total immersion; and haptizo here must take 
the sense of purify, and not that of entire immersion 
under water. 

But what is to be done with Dr. Fuller’s five 
remaining authorities, in which it is said that the 
Pharisees totally immersed themselves before eat¬ 
ing, after having been at the market!' Whether 
he has quoted them fairl}^ we have not attempted 
to ascertain. All we have to say on that point is, 
that a man who can take the liberties with the 
Book of God—a book in every one’s hand—which 
we have proven upon Dr. Fuller, is not very much 
to be relied on when he comes to give a line or two 
here and there from rare books, which the most 
intelligent men seldom see. But we will suppose 
these quotations all accurate and just. What do 
they amount to? Two of them—one from Mai mo- 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


155 


nides and one from Yatablus—say not a word about 
the market, and may refer to a very different 
department of Pharisaic lustrations from that 
alluded to in the text. But we pass this also, and 
permit them all to stand as going directly to the 
point. And yet we can satisfactorily meet them 
all without travelling out of Dr. Fuller’s own book. 
Seven of his own authorities, and the very best out 
of the twelve that he has quoted in this place, flatly 
contradict, confound, and completely negative the 
other five, and, in words as positive as can be 
chosen, declare that these Pharisaic purifications 
after attending market were not total immersions, 
but hand-washings. Are not seven an adequate 
offset to five? Are not Buxtorf, Wetstein, Eosen- 
miiller, Kuiiiol, Spencer, and Lightfoot names as 
great and controlling as Yatablus, Grotius, Maimo- 
nides, and Macknight? According to one list, the 
baptism before us was an immersion of the whole 
body,—a total immersion; according to the other 
list, it was a mere washing of the hands; according 
to a third list, it was a simple washing, without 
specification of mode : and all the lists are Dr. 
Fuller’s own quotations! Let him harmonize his 
authorities if he can, and then perhaps they may 
be of some weight. If these purifications from the 
contaminations of the market-place were mere 
washings, they may have been immersions, or they 
may have been sprinklings or rubbings. If they 
were mere hand-washings, they certainly were not 
total immersions; and the great weight of his 
authorities goes to establish that they were mere 
hand-washings and nothing else 


156 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Now, we do not intend to maintain that these 
Pharisaic lustrations from the supposed defilement 
of attending market were never performed by a 
general bathing, or even by a total immersion. 
The probability is, that in the warm season, and 
when circumstances made it convenient, they did 
at times perform this particular purification in one 
or the other of these ways. No sensible man will 
deny that such instances may have occurred. And 
this will sufficiently account for what has been said 
by Maimonides, Grotius, and Macknight. But we 
do maintain that this was not the only nor the 
ordinary way of performing this purification. The 
seven authorities quoted by Dr. Fuller, which de¬ 
clare that it was done by the mere washing of the 
hands, is proof enough to our purpose. But we 
will not stop with what they have said. Our 
author seems to think that authorities are argu¬ 
ments ; and therefore we will not withhold them. 

The commentator Henry remarks upon the cus¬ 
toms of the Jews as related to this passage, ^‘They 
particularly washed before they ate bread. They 
took special care, when they came from the mar¬ 
kets, to wash their hands. The rule of the Eabbins 
was, that if they washed their hands well in the 
morning it would serve for all day, provided they 
kept alone; but if they went into company they 
must not eat or pray till they had washed their 
hands.’^ 

Scott says, ^^It seems undeniable that by the 
words baptize and baptism, a partial application 
of water was intended in this as in several other 
places.’^ 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 157 

Dr. Schaff, in his History of the Apostolic Church, 
p. 569, says, support of this [that bapiizo has 
the genei^al sense to wash, to cleanse] a confident 
appeal can assuredly be made to several passages, 
—viz., Luke xi. 38, with Mark vii. 2, 4, where bap- 
tizien is used of the washing of hands before eating. 
Mark has for this (v. 3) niptein, which, in the East, 
was performed by pouring.” The same author says 
that in Mark vii. 4, 8, Heb. ix. 10, Baptismoi must 
be taken to include all sorts of religious purifications 
among the Jews, including sprinkling.'’ 

Bloomfield says that baptize here does not denote 
an immersion. 

In Morris and Smith’s Exposition of the Gospels 
we have this note upon this passage:—“ They [the 
Jews] did not immerse themselves in water, but 
used a small quantity, which was applied to the 
hand and wrist, or, at most, to the arm as far as 
the elbow. It cannot be proved that the Jews washed 
the whole body when they returned from market. There 
could have been no necessity for it, even in their 
opinion. The most thej’' did was to wash those 
parts which were exposed to contamination.” 

Eosenmiiller says, “The sense is, ‘when they 
come from the market (i.e. any public place) they 
do not take their food except they wash their 
hands.’ ” 

Dr. Dick says, “The baptizing after return from 
market probably signifies the same thing with 
washing their hands, as it is very improbable that 
on every such occasion they washed the whole 
body.” (Theol. vol. ii. p. 375.) 

Albert Barnes says, “ Baptize, in this place, does 
14 


158 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


not mean to immerse the whole body. There is no 
evidence that the Jews immersed their whole 
bodies every time they came from the market. It 
is probable they washed as a mere ceremony, and 
often, doubtless, with the use of a very small quan¬ 
tity of water.^^ 

And in the notes to the Cottage Bible it is said 
that some of the wealthier, who had the leisure and 
all the necessary conveniences, may have immersed 
themselves, but that the generality of the Jews did 
no more than wash their hands. 

It may be said that these are all modern authori¬ 
ties. Be it so: we will give some more ancient. 
The oldest given by Dr. Fuller carries us back to 
the close of the twelfth century. Theophylact 
lived more than a hundred years earlier, and is 
pronounced by Mosheim and Neander the most dis¬ 
tinguished exegetical writer of his age; and Theo¬ 
phylact says that these Jewish purifications before 
eating were performed by mere hand-washings. He 
designates them by the word nijptesthai^ —a word 
which, according to Beza, (as quoted by Dr. Fuller 
himself,) has respect only to the hands. 

But we go back six hundred years further still. 
We point Dr. Fuller to the oldest but one, if not 
the very oldest, existing copy of the Bible itself,— 
to a manuscript of the New Testament which, for 
its internal excellence and nearest approach to the 
older Greek copies, was preferred by Michaelis to 
all others,—to the Codex Vaticanus. We point him 
also to eight other ancient copies, as also to Eu- 
themius the Isaurian,— all of which have ranti- 
soNTAi in the place of baptisontai, <‘Wheu they 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, 


159 


come from the market, except they sprinkle them¬ 
selves they eat not.’^ And, surely, if the old Greek 
transcribers thirteen hundred years ago considered 
the word baptism in this passage as the proper 
equivalent of sprinkling, it ought to settle the case. 
If Dr. Fuller really entertains the reverence for 
authority which he professes, let him bow before 
it and confess that haptizo does not here mean a 
total immersion and nothing else. 

But the Pharisees and all the Jews” not only 
baptized or purified themselves; they had also 
received to hold many like things, such as ^Hhe 
baptizing or purifying \baptismous'] of cups and pots, 
brazen vessels, and of tables” As to these cups, 
pots, and brazen vessels, they may have been im¬ 
mersed or not, as circumstances rendered con¬ 
venient. We suppose they ordinarily were im¬ 
mersed, because this was the most convenient and 
natural mode of purifying them. Anastasius, how¬ 
ever, gives us instances in which such vessels were 
purified simply by pouring water into them, and 
calls such a purification baptism. (Biblo. Patrum, 
vol. V. p. 958.) According to the laws, the purifi¬ 
cation of polluted vessels was performed in divers 
ways, as may be seen from Levit. vi. 28, xv. 12, 
xi. 32. 

But what shall be said of the tables” f Dr. 
Fuller tells us not to think ofour massive ma¬ 
hogany furniture,” and wishes to make his readers 
believe that nothing more is meant than a round 
piece of leather”! (P. 60.) Professor Curtis of 
Lewisburg, Pa., differs from him, and tells us it was 
cotton quilt”! (P. 194.) And, by the time our 


160 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Baptist friends get through with their investi¬ 
gations, there is no telling what it will not mean. 
But, if Dr. Fuller had given attention to the au 
thority which he quotes in the very next para¬ 
graph of his book, he would have found a hint 
which would have saved him his “round piece of 
leather.’^ 

Maimonides says, “Every vessel of wood which is 
made for the use of man, as a table, receives defile¬ 
ment!” After all, it seems that a Jewish table'* 
was made of wood," and that it was a very differ¬ 
ent thing from “a round piece of leather, spread 
upon the floor, upon which is placed a sort of 
stool, supporting nothing but a platter.” How 
massive" Dr. Fuller’s “ mahogany furniture” may 
be, we know not. He claims to be something out 
of the ordinary line of Baptists, and advocates a 
system very different from that held by the great 
majority of Christians; and it may be that his 
“ mahogan}?- furniture” is also something out of the 
common order of things. But we do know that, 
especially among the wealthier Pharisees,—the 
very parties concerned in the passage before us,— 
the “ tables” in use were cumbersome wooden struc¬ 
tures, from eight to twenty feet in length, about 
four feet wide, and about three or four feet high. 
(See Watson’s Dictionary, art. “Banquet;” Horne’s 
Introduction, vol. ii. part 4, eh. 1, sec. 4; and Com¬ 
prehensive Commentary on John xiii. 23, 25.) And 
whether such articles were ordinarily submerged 
in water after every meal we ask the reflecting to 
judge. 

But the word klinon, here rendered tables, does 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT- 


161 


not properly mean the tables on which food was 
placed, but iha couches, sofas, and cushions on which 
the guests reclined whilst eating. Dr. Fuller be¬ 
comes very impatient under this fact, and says, 
don't care what it means. The Bible says they im¬ 
mersed the articles; and this is enough." (P. 61.) 
Take it easy. Doctor: the Bible says no such thing. 
That awkward and equivocal Latin word immerse 
is not in the Bible, and never will be there until 
Baptists are allowed to carry into etfect that 
cherished wish of their hearts,—to wit, the adjust¬ 
ment of the word of God to their miserable sec¬ 
tarian system. The word klinon means couches or 
beds, and the Bible says that the Jews baptized 
them; and we wish the reader to inquire into the 
character of these articles, in order to make up 
his mind as to whether that baptism was a total 
immersion. What were these couches? The 
learned Horne thus refers to them:—“The more 
opulent had (as those in the East still have) fine 
carpets, couches, or divans, and sofas, on which 
they sat, lay, and slept. In later times their couches 
were splendid, and the frames inlaid with ivory, 
and the coverlets rich and perfumed. On these 
sofas, in the latter ages of the Jewish State, [the 
very period to which this text relates,] they uni¬ 
versally reclined when taking their meals, resting 
on their side with their heads toward the table.’^ 
(Int. vol. ii. p. 154.) 

Smith, in his Dictionary of Antiquities, says, 
“The klinoe is, properly speaking, only the bed¬ 
stead, and seems to have consisted of posts fitted 
into one another, resting upon four feet. It was 


162 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

generally made of wood, solid or veneered, and 
sometimes had silver feet.^^ 

Watson thus describes them:—Round the 
tables were placed beds or couches, one to each 
table: each of these beds was called clinium. At 
the end of each clinium was a footstool, for the con¬ 
venience of mounting up to it. These beds were 
formed of mattresses and supported on frames of 
wood, often highly ornamented. The mattresses 
were covered with cloth or tapestry, according to 
the quality of the entertainer.^’ (Theol. Diet. art. 

Banquet.”) Even Mr. Carson, one of Dr. Fuller’s 
guides, freely concedes that such were the articles 
denoted by klinon. Upon these couches, too, Cle¬ 
ment tells us that it was the custom of the Jews 
often to be baptized. And can any sober-minded 
man suppose that such splendid” articles were 
subject to daily immersions, and, above all, with 
men reclining on them ? If not, then baptizo here 
signifies only to purify^ and that in some mode less 
troublesome and less destructive than that of quite 
burying them in the water. 

Lightfoot maintains that the baptism of the 
couches was by sprinkling. 

Another passage in which baptizo occurs is Luke 
xi. 38:—“A certain Pharisee besought Jesus to 
dine with him; and Jesus went in and sat down to 
meat. And when the Pharisee saw it he marvelled 
that Jesus had not first washed [ebaptisthe'] before 
dinner.” Here we have the same sort of purifi¬ 
cation spoken of in the preceding passage. Smith, 
in his Antiquities, in describing a Grecian dinner, 
says, ‘‘After the guests had placed themselves on 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


1G3 


the klmai, the slaves brought in water to wash their 
hands” The custom was doubtless the same in 
Judea and in Greece, ^^aj, if the Jewish lustra¬ 
tions were ordinarily performed by simply washing 
their hands, even when returning from the market, 
it certainly is not to be supposed in this case that 
Christ was expected to immerse himself Kuinol 
says that the existence of anj^ such custom as that 
of regular immersion before all meals cannot be 
proved. Henry, Burkitt, and Olshausen under¬ 
stand mere hand-washing to be indicated. The 
translators Wickliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Cranmer, 
the learned authors of King James’s version, the 
editors of the Geneva Bible, the Eheims version, 
and even the version given out by the distinguished 
champion of immersionism, Alexander Campbell, 
all render it in this place by the general word wash. 
Scapula, Schoetgen, Hedericus, Schleusner, Park- 
hurst, Robinson, and Ewing, all refer in their lexi¬ 
cons to this, along with other passages, as an 
instance in which the word can mean nothing 
more than simply to wash or cleanse. It denotes 
no more than a common ceremonial purification, 
which was sufficiently accomplished by a simple 
wetting of the hands. 

May we not say, then, in view of these facts and 
evidences, that it is proven that in the Hew Testa¬ 
ment baptize has a different meaning from that of 
mere immersion? Who can doubt? 

We would ask the reader to consider also, in 
this connection, that the proper Greek words for 
immersion— katapontizo, katadumiy katabaptizo, and 
dupto —are never once used by the sacred writers 


164 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


in connection with the sacrament of baptism or 
any religious cleansing. Why is- this? They 
everywhere and always have the‘very ‘^univocal 
meaning” which immersionists assign to baptizo. 
What, then, is the reason that the inspired pen¬ 
men have never used one of them with reference 
to baptism? Is not the omission significant? Has 
not this divine particularity, in using only haptizo, 
a lesson for us? Does it not teach us that there is 
a peculiarity about the meaning of this word some¬ 
thing ditferent from the simple act of immersion? 


CHAPTEK XIII. 

BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT — ITS TRUE 
MEANING. 

Our doctrine is that baptizo^ with its derivatives, 
in the vocabulary of the New Testament, is a 
religious word, and, wherever literally used, is used 
in the same distinct religious sense. Dr. Carson 
concedes that “ its occurrence in profane writers 
is very rare.” (P. 20.) And they never used it in a 
strictly religious sense. It is “ one of those words 
whose history it is peculiarly interesting to watch, 
as they obtain a deeper meaning and receive a 
new consecration in the Christian Church, which, 
even while it did not invent, has assumed them 
into its service and employed them in a far loftier 
sense than any to which the world had ever put 




BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


165 


them before.” (Trench’s Synonyms, p. 17.) If it 
meant to immerse and nothing else, it would un¬ 
questionably have been somewhere interchanged 
with other Greek words which have this specific 
signification. It is never so interchanged. Dr. 
Fuller agrees that ‘‘the Holy Spirit always, in 
speaking of the ordinance [of baptism], uses one 
single word: that word is baptizo.'' (P. 12.) This 
fact is very significant. It shows conclusively 
that this word is not the synonym of dupto, kata- 
pontizo, katadumi, katabaptizo, or any other word 
that has the specific signification of sinking under 
water, but has a sense peculiarly and pre-emi¬ 
nently its own, —not one up to the time foreign and 
unknown to this word, but one among its well- 
known significations, now adopted, fixed, and ever 
after adhered to as the specific sense in which the 
HoH Ghost employs it. 

Dr. Fuller affects to be filled with holy jealousy 
at such a doctrine. Though its truth is so dis¬ 
tinctly indicated by the acts of the Holy Spirit, 
he does not condescend to pay it common re¬ 
spect. He will not call it “amusing absurdity” 
and “ridiculous sophistry:” the subject is “too 
solemn” for that. It is presented as something 
with horns and split hoofs; a black spirit from the 
under-world, bearing the name of blasphemy; 
“an impiety which ought to fill a pious mind with 
horrof’! (P. 32.) But harsh exclamations, and 
the application of evil names, are not arguments. 
With all Dr. Fuller’s “hue and cry” about ab¬ 
surdity, sophistry, and horrible impiety, we main¬ 
tain that baptizo has a religious sense, —a peculiar, 


166 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


settled, and specific religious signification. And 
so have nearly all the translators believed, and 
acted on that belief. Jerome, Beza, the author 
of the old Italic version, Wicklifie, Tindale, Cran- 
mer, the Geneva Bible, and King James’s trans¬ 
lators, have all transferred the word without 
translating it, except in one or two instances in 
which it applies to religious washings. Horri¬ 
ble impietists these must have been, to agree 
that baptizo in the Savior’s lips was a word so 
peculiar in its application as not to be capable 
of an exact translation by any one verb either in 
Latin, Italic, or English! Hedericus assigns it a 
specific religious sense in his lexicon. Parkhurst, 
Schleusner, Eobinson, and others do the same. 
And an able critic, in the “Congregational Maga¬ 
zine,” some years ago, gave an argument, which 
I)r. Carson failed to set aside, proving “that the 
context of the word in the New Testament is 
never that which is used, both in the classics and 
in the Scriptures, to connect verbs signifying to dip 
with that into which any object is dipped; but, on 
the contrary, the context is always of a kind 
which proves that literally it means some effect 
produced by water. Where bapto and baptizo sig¬ 
nify to dip, the context is eis, with that into which 
the object is dipped,—as we should say, he dipped 
into water, &c. But this construction does not once 
occur in the use of baptizo in the Septuagint and the 
New Testament’' Even Carson himself admits 
that immersion and baptism are not synonjunous 
words. He says that they “are any thing rather 
than synonymous.” (P. 383.) The testimony, 






BArTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


167 


therefore, is perfectly conclusive, that baptizo in 
the New Testament is used in a somewhat peculiar 
way; that it is a religious word, with its own 
distinct religious sense. 

We.have just argued that baptizo was not used 
by the inspired writers to signify a total immer¬ 
sion and nothing else, because they have never 
used it interchangeably with other words which 
have this specific signification. Upon the same 
principle we argue that, if an instance can be 
found in which the sacred penmen use it inter¬ 
changeably with any other word, that word must 
give its true scriptural, religious sense, its proper, 
technical. New Testament signification. Have we 
any such instance? We have. 

Let the reader turn to John iii. 22 and read 
from that on to John iv. 3. The apostle here 
tells us that John the Baptist was baptizing at 
£non, and that Jesus was also engaged in bap¬ 
tizing—at least, by his disciples—in the same 
vicinity. John had been baptizing great multi¬ 
tudes; but it seems that at this time the public 
attention was somewiiat diverted from John's bap¬ 
tism to that of the Savior. A sort of jealousy 
was engendered in some of John’s disciples by this 
turn in the current of popular favor, and they 
began to speak of it. A dispute arose about the 
relative merits of John’s baptism and Christ’s 
baptism. And this dispute about baptism the 
sacred Avriter terms “ a question peri katharis- 
Mou ,”—about PURIFYING. Of course, it could not 
have been a question about purification in general: 
that is altogether foreign to the scope of the 


168 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


passage. It was baptism that gave rise to the 
dispute; and baptism was the subject with which 
the disputants, on the one side at least, went to 
John to complain. (John v. 26.) It necessarily fol¬ 
lows, therefore, that the subject of their dispute 
was baptism. Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, and 
Cyril of Alexandria, testify exjiressly, in comment¬ 
ing upon this passage, that the question concern¬ 
ing purification was simply and only a question 
concerning baptism. Theophylact says of John’s 
disciples and the Jews on this occasion that they 
‘‘disputed concerning purification; that is, bap¬ 
tism.” Olshausen says, “The dispute related to 
baptism.” Dr. Beecher says, “ The dispute in 
question was plainly a specific dispute concerning 
baptism as practiced by Jesus and John.” Schleus- 
ner, Wahl, Yater, Eosenmuller, De Wette, Bret- 
schneider, and Kuinol, all say that baptism was 
the only subject of the question. Grotius, Beza, 
Whitby, Doederline, Burkitt, Clarke, and Henry 
take the same view. Eosenmuller, Yater, Kuinol, 
and Sehleusner give baptism as the proper trans¬ 
lation of katharismou in this passage. Even Pro¬ 
fessor Eipley himself, nay, all that have ven¬ 
tured to comment upon this text, so far as we 
know, Mr. Carson alone excepted, in some way or 
other make katharismou here mean baptism. By 
no just laws of interpretation can it be made to 
mean any thing else. And, whether we put bap¬ 
tism in the place of the word purifying, or put 
purify in the place of baptize, the sense remains 
the same. 

Here, then, is a divine key to unlock to us tho 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


169 


true religious sense of baptizo. By inspiration of 
the Holy Ghost it has its equivalent and synonym 
in katharizo, which means to purify. The dispute 
of which the apostle speaks was not a dispute 
about “ a total immersion and nothing else/’ but a 
dispute about purifying. That purifying was the 
religious rite of baptism as practiced both by Christ 
and his forerunner. It follows, therefore, with 
inevitable certainty,—and that not from heathen 
classics or modern Jewish paraphrasts, but from 
the infallible word of God itself,—that the true 
religious sense of baptizo is religious purification. 
If this is horrible impiety,’ let Hr. Fuller make the 
most of it. 

Another word given in the Scriptures as equiva¬ 
lent to baptizo is dikaioo, to clear, justify, to de¬ 
clare innocent, and hence also to purify. In 
Hebrews ix. 10 the writer makes diaphorois bap- 
tismois (divers baptisms) the exact eqfuivalent of 
dikaiomasi sarkos (clearings of the flesh). He is 
speaking of the external expiations and lustra¬ 
tions prescribed in the Jewish law. He calls 
them all baptisms; and these outward baptisms he 
calls clearings or purifyings of the flesh. It is true, 
in the English Bible the word “ and” comes be¬ 
tween these two expressions, as if the writer 
designed to designate two distinct departments in 
the legal services of which he is speaking. But Gries- 
bach altogether rejects this ‘^and” (kai), as not a 
genuine reading. Professor Stuart takes the same 
view, and renders the passage ‘‘ meats and drinks 
and divers washings [baptisms'],—ordinances periaim 
mg to the flesh.” The Syriac version, according to 
15 


170 ‘ THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

Murdock’s translation of it, is very clear in this 
view. After the reference to meats and drinks 
and baptisms, it has this unequivocal phrase:— 
“WHICH WERE carnal ordinances’^ Tn a tract be¬ 
fore us, from a doctor of divinity in the city of 
Baltimore, the passage is rendered meats and 
drinks and divers baptisms, [even] justifications 
[or purifications] of the flesh.” Dr. Carson agrees 
that kai often signifies even.” (P. 69.) And it is 
evident to all who will examine that this must be 
the true reading, because there are no justifica¬ 
tions or purif 3 dngs of the flesh prescribed in all 
the Jewisli law which are not completel}’^ included 
^‘in meats and drinks and divers baptisms.” Bap- 
tismois and dikaiomasi are therefore interchange¬ 
able terms. At least the H 0 I 3 " Ghost employs the 
one to explain the other. Bikaioma nowhere, to 
our knowledge, means immersion or any thing 
like it. It means a judicial clearing. In Eom. ii. 
26, V. 18, viii. 4, and Bev. xix. 8 , it is rendered 
righteousness; in many places, justify; in Eom. vi. 
7, freed. All these are also meanings of katharizo. 
And, if these words explain the meaning of hap- 
tizo^ a religious purifying is certainly its sense. 
There can be no escape from this argument. 

Again: in 1 Cor. xii. 13 the Holy Ghost him¬ 
self is presented as a baptizer :—“ For by one Spirit 
we are all baptized \_ebaptisthamen'].” Is the Holy 
Spirit an immerser or plunger? Ho; the Hol^^ 
Spirit is a sanctifler, a purifier. (Ezek. xxxvii. 28; 
Eom. XV. 16; I Pet. i. 2.) “The baptism of the 
Holy Ghost,” saj^s Brown, “ denotes not only the 
miraculous collation of the influences of the blessed 



BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 171 

Spirit, whereby the New Testament Church was 
solemnly consecrated to the service of God, but 
chiefly his gracious influences, which, like fire, 
jpurify, soften, and inflame our heart with love to 
Jesus, and wash away our sin, and enable us to 
\ join ourselves to him and his people.^’ When, 
therefore, the fulfillment of these offices of the 
Holy Ghost upon the recovered sinner is called 
baptism, are we not bound to interpret the word 
according to the nature of the offices and work 
of the Holy Spirit? If the office of the Holy 
Ghost is to purify, and God calls that purification 
baptism, is it not a clear and palpable demonstra¬ 
tion that in God’s mouth the terms are convertible, 
and that baptize in its proper religious sense means 
purification? 

There is also a passage in the first chapter of 
John, verses 19-28, which remains exceedingly 
obscure until we give to baptize its proper signifi¬ 
cation of purify. The authorities of the Jewish 
people sent a deputation to John the Baptist, to 
ascertain from him his true oflicial character and 
position. They asked him whether he was Elijah, 
mistaking as they did the true import of the pre¬ 
diction in Malachi iv. 5, 6. John said he was not. 
They asked him whether he was that prophet 
foretold by Moses in Deuteronomy xviii. 15. He 
answered again he was not. They then asked 
him, “ Why baptizest [baptizeis'] then, then, if thou 
be net the Christ nor Elijah, neither that prophet?'’ 
What does this mean? AYhat had been said by 
the ancient prophets concerning Christ and his 
forerunner, that led the Jewish officials to suppose 


172 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

that these predictions were verified in John’s work 
of baptizing? Had God’s messenger been pre¬ 
dicted as an immerser? Ho. Had Christ been 
predicted as an imrnerser? Ho. In what peculiar 
character, then, had they been predicted, to give 
rise to this singular question? One passage in 
Malachi iii. 1-3 will solve the whole difllcult 3 ^ In 
that passage the Savior is foretold as a purifier, 
likened to ‘^a refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap,” who 
should “sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,” 
who should ‘‘PURIFY the sons of Levi and purge them 
as gold and silver.” See also Isa. i. 25, iv. 4; Zech. 
xiii. 9j Matt. iii. 10, 12; and Lightfoot’s large col¬ 
lection of Eabbinical passages on this point. Ac¬ 
cording to these prophecies, the Jews universally 
expected both Elijah and Christ in the official 
character of purifiers. And when they put the 
question to John, why he baptized if he was 
neither Christ nor Elijah, they doubtless used the 
word in the sense of the prophecies which led 
them to ask the question, and the nature of the 
case requires us to assign it the only intelligible 
sense of purification. 

There are yet a couple of passages which at least 
approach a definition of baptism, to which we 
invite attention. The one is Eph. v. 26, the other 
is Titus iii. 5. That these texts refer directly to 
baptism is agreed by the best interpreters, and 
cannot be successfully denied. Mr. Campbell admits 
that they do; and, if we are not mistaken in our 
recollection, so does Hr. Carson. But these pass¬ 
ages not only refer to baptism; they describe and 
define it. But do they speak of it as immersion ? 


BAPTTZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


173 


No. Do they connect immersion with it as an 
essential part of it? No. The first says it is a 
mnctification, a cleansing, a catharism (catharisios), 
^‘with the washing [loutro^ of water in or by the 
word.’’ The other says it is “the washing \lou~ 
tron'] of regeneration.” Who, but one bent upon 
the support of a sectarian system right or wrong, 
would ever think of finding immersion in these 
texts? It is not in them. We have already given 
the meaning of louo or loutron. (See Chapter Y., 
on the case of Naaman.) Immersion is no part of 
its meaning. Galerius in his lexicon says it signi¬ 
fies “not only to wash or bathe, but also to 
moisten, foment, pour, or sprinkle.” Basil applies 
it to denote the baptism of Ariantheus the praetor, 
who was converted on his death-bed, who Avas bap¬ 
tized by sprinkling. (See his Letter 386.) Julius 
Pollux, seq., 46, lib. 10, cap. 10, uses it to designate 
basins used for washing the hands and face. Zo- 
naras defines loutron to mean “any thing which 
produces the removal of impurity.” What, then, 
is a religious loutron but a religious cleansing or 
purifying ? 

Now, what higher authority as to the scriptural 
meaning of baptism is there upon this earth than 
these passages? They may be called God’s own 
definition of the word and the sacrament of 
which it is the name. And, gathering up what 
they teach on the subject in dispute, we are shut 
up and compelled to say that the Christian, Bibli¬ 
cal, and divine sense of haptizo is a religious catha 
rism, cleansing, washing, or purifying. 

Apart from its religious application, this mean- 
15 * 


174 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

ing was not first attached to this word by the wri¬ 
ters of the New Testament. We have sufiiciently 
set forth this fact in our preceding discussion. Dr. 
Carson admits that in confining baptizo to the ex¬ 
clusive modal sense of dip, he has ‘^all the lexi¬ 
cographers and commentators against” him. Mr. 
George Wilson, who styles him'self “an exiled 
minister of the Associate Deformed Church,” and 
who has volunteered to furnish us with his lucu¬ 
brations in support of immersion baptism, says, 
“That baptizo is frequently used where the design 
of the action was to wash, we have no reason to 
dispute.” (P. 95.) We have shown that the word 
bapto, from which baptizo is derived, has the signi 
fications of wash, cleanse, xuet, moisten, and bedew. 
We have shown that there is nothing in the addi¬ 
tion of zo or izo to exclude or augment this sense. 
We have shown, by more than twenty lexicons, 
and as many authorities additional, that wash, 
cleanse, purify is one of the plain and common 
significations of this disputed word. We have 
demonstrated, from the Alexandrine or Hebra! 
Greek of the Septuagint and patristic writers 
that wash, cleanse, and purify, especially in a re 
ligious sense, is one of the commonest and the 
almost exclusive sense in which the word is 
employed in that kind of Greek writing. It was 
therefore neither far-fetched nor violent, but natu¬ 
ral, easy, and very much demanded by the nature 
of the case, for the Holy Ghost to take up and 
employ this word alwa^^s in the same specific 
sense of a religious cleansing, washing, or purifi 
cation. 


BAPTIZC IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 175 

But even if baptizo had never been used in this 
sense previous to its introd ucti on into the New Testa¬ 
ment, that it is so used by the Holy Ghost is a 
fixed fact, which no ingenuity or eloquence on earth 
can unsettle. AVe have seen that it is used by the 
inspired John as the synonym of katharizo, which 
means only to cleanse, especially in a religious, 
legal, or ceremonial sense. Paul employs it to de 
note the work of God’s Spirit in the sinner’s heart, 
which is a purification, and not an immersion. John 
is again and again called the baptizer, and was 
supposed to be either Elias or the Christ simply 
because he cleansed Israel by a religious purifying. 
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls 
all the various sprinklings, expiations, and lustra¬ 
tions under the Jewish law, many of which 
certainly were not immersions, divers baptisms, 
only because they were purifications. The Pharisaic 
washing of hands before eating, the washing of 
pots and cups and brazen vessels, and the sprink¬ 
ling of beds and couches, are all called baptisms, 
upon no other ground than that they were cere¬ 
monial Christ himself is said to have 

been baptized (with water by John, and with blood 
and agony in Gethsemane and on the cross) for 
the expressed purpose, and only in this respect, 
that he might fulfill all righteousness, (Matt. iii. 15,) 
and be perfected through sufferings, (Heb. ii. 10,) 
and have effected in himself the great purgation 
through which those who are in him are justified 
and purified forever. The Israelites are said to 
have been baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in 
the sea, because, according to Yitringa, Wolf, Ben 


176 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


gel, Eosenmuller, Semler, Schleusner, and others, 
they were thereby initiated into the religion 
which Moses taught, ransomed from their degra¬ 
dation and bondage in Egypt, absolved from their 
old taskmasters, consecrated as God’s peculiar 
people, purified from their former associations with 
the heathen, and, by a wonderful divine inter¬ 
position, separated from the vile and blaspheming, 
as a people henceforth and forever specially 
ordained to hear God’s messengers and to obey 
God’s law. That baptism was not an immersion; 
the hosts of Pharaoh alone were immersed; but it 
was a mysterious consecration, an absolution, an 
induction into a new and holier state, a purification. 
Augustine (Serm. de Catach., vol. ix. p. 320, Paris, 
1586) speaks of it as a salvation hy water. 
^‘One element,” says he, ‘^by the command of the 
Creator, judged both; for it separated the righteous 
fi-om the wicked. The former it washed, the latter 
it overwhelmed; the former it purified, the latter 
it destroyed.” Hilary paraphrases the words 
thus:—“Their past sins were not imputed to 
them, but they were purified [^purificati^ by the 
cloud and by the sea.” In the same way, in Pom. 
vi. 3-11, Christians are said to be baptized into 
Jesus Christ, because in him their old body of sin 
is destroyed, their guilt absolved, their impurities 
purged out, and a glorious renovation effected. 
There can be no immersion in Christ, nor yet in 
the death of Christ; but there is absolution in 
Christ and his death, and purification; for his 
blood cleanseth from all sin. And there is not a 
single instance in the New Testament in which 








BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 177 

baptizo is literally used, wdiere it does uot natu¬ 
rally, if not necessarily, take the sense of religious 
purification. 

The testimony from the Fathers that baptizo 
has the sense of kailiarizo, and in Christian lan¬ 
guage means a religious purifying, is almost 
without limit, as Dr. Beecher has satisfactorily 
ehown. 

Take the lexicographers Zonaras and Phavorinus. 
They were not among the early Fa there, but they 
give us dictionaries founded on the early Fathers. 
Zonaras was one of the four leading Byzantine 
historians. He wrote annals from the beginning 
of the world down to a.d. 1118, and various com¬ 
mentaries on apostolic canons, decrees of councils, 
&c. Tittman says of his lexicon, consider it, 
after that of Hesychius, the most learned of all 
others that survive, the most copious and most 
accurate.” And yet these great lexicographers 
say not one word about immersion in connection 
with baptism. They define ^^haptisnia ,—the remis¬ 
sion of sins by water and the Spirit, the unspeak¬ 
able forgiveness of sins, the loosing of the bond [of 
sin] granted by the love of God toward men, the 
voluntary arrangement of a new life toward God, 
the releasing or recovery of the soul to that which 
is better,—to holiness.” All these are exact defi¬ 
nitions of religious purifying. They are all mean¬ 
ings of katharizo. And surely those words must 
be synonymous to which the same definitions are 
given. 

But these are not the mere opinions of Zonaras 
and Phavorinus. They are taken almost literally 








17b 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


from the Fathers. Basil, on Isaiah iv. 4, sets him¬ 
self to give a formal and comprehensive definition 
of the whole import of baptisma. In this definition 
he gives three significations or applications of the 
word, in each of which the idea of purification is 
the uppermost. He says that baptism means puri¬ 
fication from filth, spiritual purification, (pneumatos 
anagennesis,) and purgation or trial by the fire of 
the judgment. Clement calls the washing of 
Penelope and the wetting of the hands of Tele- 
machus with sea-water, in Homer, and the lus¬ 
trations of the Jews whilst reclining on {epi) their 
couches, baptisms, certainly not because they were 
immersions,—they were not immersions,—but be¬ 
cause they were religious purifyings. Justin Martyr 
calls deliverance from evil passions a baptism. Ori- 
gen calls martyrdom a baptism. Ambrose calls 
the sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb 
on the doors in Egypt a baptism. Cyril calls the 
sprinkling of the ashes of the burnt heifer on the 
unclean baptism. Tertullian calls the heathen cere¬ 
monies of sprinkling themselves, their temples, &c., 
baptisms. Athanasius calls the placing of John’s 
hand upon the Savior’s head a baptism. Gregory 
Nazianzen, in his thirty-ninth discourse, calls mar¬ 
tyrdom, penance, and purgation in another life 
baptisms. Some of these same Fathers call the 
washing of the disciples’ feet by Christ a baptism. 
How can all this be explained unless we take the 
word baptism in the sense of religious purification ? 
Anastasius says he would not hesitate to call 
mourning a baptism. He sa^^s that “affliction, 
with humility and silence, is a baptism;'’ and the 


BAPTTZO IN niE NEW TESTAMENT. 


179 


reason he assigns is, that purifies a man.” Ter- 
tullian calls the water and blood that issued from 
the side of Christ two baptisms, —of course not im¬ 
mersions, but purifications or purifiers. Maximus 
(vol. ii. p. 459, Paris, 1675) says that ‘^sons of 
thunder” means sons of baptism. The explanation 
he gives is, that thunder is composed of water and 
air, an initiation into the mystery of purification. 
His philosophy is faulty and his language involved; 
but the passage is sufficient to show that he con¬ 
sidered purification the proper sense of the word 
baptism. Chrysostom uses it interchangeably with 
remission and reconciliation, and Cyprian with the 
words washing and cleansing; all of which requires 
the sense of purification. Josephus, also, though 
not a Christian, speaks of John’s baptism as a puri¬ 
fication. (Ant. lib. xviii. cap. 5, sec. 2.) Chrysos¬ 
tom, in his thirty-third Homily, says that Christ 
calls his cross and death a cup and baptism: a 
cup, because he readily drank it; baptism, because 
by it he purified the world.” Theophylact, on Matt. 
XX. 22, 23, says that Jesus calls his death a bap¬ 
tism, as making a purification or expiation [kathar- 
tikon'\ for all of us.” So also, on Mark x. 38, 39, ho 
says that Jesus “calls his cross baptism, as about to 
make a purification [Imtharismon'] for sin.” Gregory 
Hazianzen speaks of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan 
as his purification \]iathairomenoii\ in the Jordan. 
Several Fathers call the tears of penitence or prayer 
baptism; certainly not because suppliants were 
totally immersed in them, but because, as ISTilus, 
the disciple of Chrysostom, says, they are “ good 
wash-basins for the soulor, as Gregory of Hyssa 


180 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


says, fountains, by means of which you can wash 
olf the spots and pollutions of your soul.’’ In the 
passage from Origen relative to the baptism of the 
wood, altar, and hewn bullock in Elijah’s sacrifice, 
the sense of purify is expressly assigned to baptizo. 
The passage is this:—“How came you [the Jews] 
to think that Elias, when he should come, would 
baptize, who did not himself baptize the wood upon 
the altar in the days of Ahab, although it needed to 
be PURIFIED, but commanded the priests to do it ?” 
Baptism and purification are here used interchange¬ 
ably with each other; and the author only means 
to affirm that the baptizing or purifying of the 
wood on the altar was not performed by Elijah 
himself, but by the priests. 

But this is still not all. The command in Isaiah 
i. 16 is a command to wash, make clean, and put 
away evil. Justin Martyr, Cyril, and Hippolytus 
call it a prophetic injunction of baptism. The 
promise in Ezekiel xxvi. 25 is a promise to sprinkle 
with clean water and to cleanse from filthiness and 
idols. Cyprian, Jerome, and others pronounce it a 
prediction concerning baptism. This application 
of the promise is of frequent occurrence in the 
writings of the Fathers. What modern Baptist 
would not feel that he had surrendered his creed 
and abandoned his denomination if he were to 
make the same application ? The phrase in Isaiah 
liii. 15, “He shall sprinkle many nations,” Jerome 
applies also to baptism. He thus states its mean¬ 
ing:—“He shall sprinkle, &c., cleansing them in his 
own blood, and by baptism consecrating them to the 
service of God.” The prophecy in Isaiah iv. 4 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


181 


relates to purification by washing, judgment, and 
the spirit of burning. Basil, Jerome, Origen, Eu¬ 
sebius, and Theodoret call it baptism, which is 
partly accomplished in the present life and partly 
in the life to come. The declaration in Psalm Ixvi. 
10 speaks only of the process by which metals are 
freed from dross. One writing in the name of 
Chrysostom calls it a baptism; ‘‘for,’’ says he, “as 
gold or silver is purified in the furnace by con¬ 
suming the dross, so a man placed in the furnace 
of affliction \s purified ” Malachi hi. 3 speaks only 
of purifying and purging. Theodoret and Cyril 
of Alexandria speak of it as a prophecy of baptism, 
and comment upon it as explaining why the Jews 
demanded of John why he baptized, if he was neither 
Elias nor the.Christ. And Athanasius says, ex¬ 
plicitly, “ The expression. He shall baptize you 
with the Holy Ghost, means this, that he shall 
PURIFY you \kathariei humasl” Indeed, Cyprian has 
this broad declaration,—that “ as often as water 
alone is mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures, bap¬ 
tism is alluded to;” “because,” says Isidore Hispa- 
lensis, “water is purifier, and is the only element 
that purifies all things.” Augustine, also, has this 
passage:—“ When we say that Christ baptizes, we 
do not say that he holds and washes in water 
the body of the believer, but that he invisibly 
purifies him, and not only him, but the whole 
Church.” 

From all this is not the conclusion inevitable 
that baptizo, as a religious term, does not mean “a 
total immersion and nothing else,” nor yet to 
sprinkle or pour, but to purify, without limitation 
16 


182 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


as to mode? Even Maimonides, upon whom Dr. 
Fuller relies so much, applies the word baptism to 
a general religious purification. “There are three 
things,” says he, “ by which the Israelites entered 
into covenant with God,—circumcision, baptism, 
and sacrifice. Baptism was practiced in the desert 
before the giving of the law; for God said to Moses, 
Sanctify them.” {Issure Biah, Perek 13.) Did 
Moses immerse the people? Certainly not. He 
only commanded them to purify themselves by 
taking care that no defilement was on them, by 
abstaining from ail fleshly indulgences, and by 
washing their clothes, repenting of their sins, and 
lifting their hearts to God. And this general 
fication is cited as an instance and an evidence of 
Mosaic baptism. Indeed, so thoroughly were some 
of the translators of the Bible convinced that to 
baptize is to purify, that the Saxon Testament has 
John le Fullvbtere, —literally, the Scourer; and the 
Icelandic translates baptism skira, —literally, to 
scour; that is, to cleanse. 

Indeed, all respectable versions of the Hew Tes¬ 
tament, from its first publication until now, are 
against the Baptist interpretation of baptize. The 
venerable Peshito-Syriac and the Philoxenian ren¬ 
der it by amad, —the primary meaning of which, 
according to Schaaf’s Syriac Lexicon, is abluo, to 
wash or cleanse. The Syriac word for immerse is 
tzeva; but it is never employed to translate baptize. 
The Arabic uses a term of the same import as the 
Syriac amad. The Persic version gives for baptize 
a word meaning to wash. The Ethiopic,. the Sa¬ 
fi idic, the Basmtiric, the Arminian, the German, 


BAPTIZO IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


183 


the Swedish, the Danish, the English in all its old 
versions, the French, the Spanish, and, in one 
place, even the Campbellite-j5(7^^iS^ version, give 
washing, cleansing, purifymg, or words to this effect, 
as the proper equivalent of baptize in the New 
Testament. They could not do otherwise and 
remain faithful to the truth. And, indeed, as 
remarked by Dr. Beecher, the idea of purification, 
in the nature of things, is better adapted to be the 
name of this rite than immersion. It has a fitness 
and verisimilitude, in all its extensive variety of 
usage, which cause the mind to feel the self-evi¬ 
dencing power of truth, as producing harmony 
and agreement in the most minute as well' as in 
the most important relations of the various parts 
of this subject to each other. First, the idea of 
purification is the fundamental idea in the whole 
subject. Second, it is an idea complete and defi¬ 
nite in itself in every sense, and needs no adjunct 
to make it more so. Third, it is the soul and 
centre of a whole circle of delightful ideas and 
words. It throws out before the mind a flood of 
rich and glorious thoughts, and is adapted to ope¬ 
rate upon the feelings like a perfect charm. To a 
sinner desiring salvation, what two ideas so delight¬ 
ful as forgiveness and purity? Both are condensed 
in this one word. It involves in itself a deliverance 
from the guilt of sin and from its pollution. It is 
a purification from sin in every sense. It is puri¬ 
fication by the atonement and purification by the 
truth,—by water and by blood. And around these 
ideas cluster others likewise, of holiness, salvation, 
eternal joy, eternal life. No other word can pro- 


184 


THE BAPTfST SYSTEM EXAMINED, 


duce such delight in the heart and send STich a 
flood of light into all the relations of divine truth; 
for purity, in the broad Seriplnre sense, is the joy 
and salvation of man and the crowning glory ot 
God. 

Of immersion not one of these things is true. It 
is not a fundamental idea in any subject or system. 
By itself it does not convey any one fixed idea, but 
depends on its adjuncts and varies with them. 
Immersion! In what? clean water or filthy? in a 
dye-fluid, or in wine? Until these questions are 
answered the word is of no use. And with the 
spiritual sense the case is still worse; for common 
usage limits it in English^ Latin, Greek, and, so 
far as we know, in all languages, by its adjuncts, 
of a kind denoting calamity or degradation, and 
never purity. It has intimate and firmly-estab¬ 
lished associations with such words as luxury, 
ease, indolence, sloth, cares, anxieties, troubles, 
distresses, sins, pollution, death. We familiarly 
speak of immersion and sinking in all these; but 
with their opposites the idea of immersion refuses 
alliance. Sinking and downward motion are 
naturally allied with ideas which, in a moral sense, 
are depressed and debased, and not with such as 
are elevated and pure. And for what reason should 
the God of order, purity,, harmony, and taste select 
an idea for the name of his own beloved rite so 
alien from it, and reject one in every respect so 
desirable and so fit ? Who does not feel that the 
name of so delightful an idea as ^mrification must 
be the name of the rite ? And who does not rejoice 
that there is proof so unanswerable that such is the 


SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE. 185 

signification of the word which the Holy Ghost 
everywhere uses to denote this holy Christian 
sacrament ? (See Beecher on Bapt. pp. 81, 82.) 

May we not now say we have ascertained the 
meaning of haptizo? It signifies a religious wash¬ 
ing, cleansing, and purifying. At any rate, Dr. 
Carson concedes that, whatever may be supposed 
the meaning of the name of this rite, it is in its 
NATURE a rite 0 / purieication.’’ (P. 471.) 


CHAPTEE XIY. 

scriptural hints concerning mode. 

After what has now been said, it is impossible 
for any man, open to receive the truth, not to be 
convinced that the Hew Testament and Christian 
use of baptize is to signify a religious purifying, 
without regard to mode. That the sacred and 
Christian writers have used it in this sense, and 
that with reference to purifyings performed in 
every variety of mode, is settled,—may "we not 
say demonstrated? It is not a matter of analogy 
or inference, but a matter o? fact, which ten thou¬ 
sand proofs that baptize among the old heathen 
Greeks originally meant to immerse, dip, sink, and 
drown cannot at all atfect or set aside; a matter of 
fact so fully proven and so firmly established that 
a man might as well attempt to turn the course 
of the Mississippi across the Eocky Mountains, or 
' 16 -^ 



186 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


to overthrow the eternal hills, as to undertake to 
strike it from among the fixed verities of things. 

Nor should it be thought strange or remarkable 
that a word which once so frequently meant to dip 
and plunge has thus passed over to signify a re¬ 
ligious purification, without regard to the manner 
of its performance. Dr. Beecher has justly re¬ 
marked that no principle is more universally 
admitted by all sound philologists than that to 
establish the original and primitive meaning of a 
word is not at all decisive as regards its subse¬ 
quent usages;’^ that ‘^it is too plain to be denied, 
that words do often so far depart from their primi¬ 
tive meaning as entirely to leave out the original 
idea;’' and that “such transitions are particularly 
common in words of the class of baptizo, denoting 
action by or with reference to a fluid.’’ We will 
condense a few of his examples. Tingo certainly 
once meant only to immerse and dip; then to dye 
or color, as ordinarily performed by immersing the 
articles to be colored; then to color or stain, with¬ 
out reference to mode; and, lastly, it gave rise to 
the English words tinge and tint, in which there is 
not the least thought of immersion. The original 
idea of wash was simply to cleanse by a purifying 
fluid; afterward it came to signify the application 
of a superficial coloring, as to white wash, yellow- 
wash, or to wash with silver or gold; and finally 
it has come into a use where the original idea of 
purity is entirely lost, as when we speak of the 
washes of a cow-jmrd or from the streets. Let once 
meant only to hinder; now it means only io permit. 
And similar transitions ma^^ be traced in the words 


SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE. 187 

conversation, charity, prevent, &c. Carson says, 
‘‘The word saucer, from signifying a small vessel 
for holding sauce, now signifies one for cooling 
teaand that “ the foreigner who should allege 
that the English word saucer cannot signify a 
small vessel for tea, but must always denote one 
for sauce, would reason as correctly as those who 
attempt to force hapto, when signifying to dye, 
always to look back to its origin.” (P. 49.) Ex¬ 
actly so; and the wonder is that he could not be 
made to see that the same law can apply to baptize. 
Indeed, this doctrine of transition in the meaning 
of words is so clear and undeniable that terrible 
havoc would be made with modern writing to 
persist in interpreting every word according to its 
etymology. It is use, not derivation, that estab¬ 
lishes the meaning of diction. Nor has anybody 
expressed this better than Dr. Carson himself. 
“Were the origin of hapto to be traced,” says he, 
“ even with the utmost certainty, to some other 
word or words of the language, its meaning in the 
language must be determined by its use in the 
language, and not by its origin. Words often 
depart widely in their use from the meaning of their 
root. They may drop some idea that was at first 
essential, or they may embrace ideas not originally 
applied.” (P. 88.) Again : he says, “ Nothing in 
the history of words is more common tlian to 
enlarge or diminish their signification. Ideas not 
origmally included are often affixed, while others drop 
IDEAS ORIGINALLY ASSERTED. In this Way bapto, 
(the very word from which bajdizo comes,) from 
signifying mere mode, came to be applied to a cer- 


188 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


tain operation usually performed in that mode: 
from signifying to dip, it came to signify to dye by 
dipping, because this was the way in which things 
were usually dyed; and afterwards, from dyeing by 
dipping, it came to denote dyeing in any manner. A 
like process may he shown in the history of a thousand 
other words” (P. 44.) 

Well, then, if thisds a process so clear and fur¬ 
nishes so many illustrations, and if bapto, “from 
signifying mere mode,” passed to the signification 
only of an effect produced “ in any manner,” why 
could not its derivative baptizo pavSS through a 
similar transition, from signifying immersion to 
the sense of cleansing by immersion, and from 
cleansing by immersion to the sense of cleansing 
“ in any manner,” to denote only the idea of puri¬ 
fication ? .Reasoning from analogy or from the 
nature of the subject, there is nothing to prevent 
such a transition. On the other hand. Dr. Beecher 
has shown that circumstances existed prior to the 
time of Christ rendering such a transition exceed- 
ingly probable. And that baptizo did pass through 
some such transition, or from the beginning had 
associated with it a meaning so as to be employed 
by the inspired and the early Christian writers to 
denote simply a purification without limitation as 
to mode, is abundantly proven by the conclusive 
arguments presented in the preceding chapters. 

This one fact, then, effectually and forever dis¬ 
poses of all Dr. Fuller’s quotations from the old 
heathen Greeks to prove that baptizo in the New 
Testament “signifies a total immersion and no¬ 
thing else.^’ If it did originally mean to dip, it 



SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE. 189 

had acquired the additional sense of wash and 
cleanse long before the Savior’s time. Of this all 
the lexicographers are witnesses. The Septuagint, 
which was written more than two hundred and 
fifty years before Christ, uses it interchangeably 
wTth louo, which means to wash, without reference 
to mode. And so it is employed in the New Testa¬ 
ment, in this one fixed and uniform sense of purifi¬ 
cation, without limitation as to manner. We chal¬ 
lenge all the Baptist learning in the world to pro¬ 
duce from the New Testament one single instance 
in which its signification is necessarily limited to 
immersion. In all their multiplied books, tracts, 
and arguments on this subject Baptists have never 
produced such an instance. They cannot produce 
such an instance. There is none such in existence. 

With characteristic regard for fairness, it is the 
constant habit of Baptist writers to treat us and 
our i^osition as if we held that baptize means to 
sprinkle or pour. Dr. Fuller ascribes this to us as 
our doctrine again and again. We deny it, and 
hurl back the statement as unmanly sophistry. 
We maintain no such thing. This would be limit¬ 
ing the word to mode, just like himself We do 
not say that it never means to sprinkle. Schreve- 
lius and Scapula translate it by lavo, which often 
has the sense of sprinkling; but our doctrine is that 
baptize, in its New Testament and Christian sense, 
means to purify, without limitation as to mode. We 
do not read. In those days came John the sprinkler, 
or John the pourer, or John the dipper, but John 
the purifier; not I indeed pour you with water unto 
repentance, nor I indeed dip you with water unto 


> 



190 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


reyentance, but I indeed purify you with water ] not 
There standeth one among you who shall sprinkle 
you with the Holy Ghost, or dip you with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire, but one who shall purify you 
with the Holy Ghost and with fire; not He that 
believeth and is sprinkled or dipped shall be saved, 
but He that believeth and \9, purified shall be saved; 
not Ye are sprinkled in Christ’s death, or dipped in 
Christ’s death, but purified in Christ’s death; not 
that The fathers were poured unto Moses in the 
cloud, or sprinkled unto Moses in the cloud, much 
less dipped unto Moses in the cloud, but purified 
unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; not Go ye 
and make disciples of all nations, pouring them, or 
PLUNGING them, h\xt purifying them, in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
Only let our position be fairly stated, and the Baptist 
theory will refute itself Hr. Fuller sees this; and 
hence his equivocation and sophistry. 

We proceed now to inquire how far Hr. Fuller’s 
theory that the plunging of the subject into the 
element is requisite to valid baptism is sustained 
by those incidental expressions given by the Bible 
in connection with this point. We do not expect 
to prove that the Scriptures anywhere lay down 
any one specific mode for the performance of this 
baptismal purification, any more than to find 
inspired direction as to any one specific mode of 
receiving or administering the Lord’s Supper. The 
Scriptures nowhere prescribe specific modes for the 
observance of either of these two great Christian sacra¬ 
ments. And we call upon Hr. Fuller and all his 
teachers to produce the passage which will confute 


SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE. 191 

this statement. But still there are some incidental 
expressions bearing upon the subject of mode, to 
which wcNdesire to direct attention. 

Let us look for a moment at what is said about 
the baptism by the Holy Ghost, and of the mode 
of action by which this baptism is effected. John’s 
testimony concerning Jesus was, ‘‘He shall baptize 
you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Jesus 
himself promised his disciples, “ I send the promise 
of my Father upon you: tarry ye in the city until 
ye be endued with power from on high” “Ye shall 
be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days 
hence.” (Luke xxiv. 49; Acts i. 5.) Here was a 
sacred prophecy, the fulfillment of which has been 
recorded by the pen of inspiration. This baptism 
was to occur “not many days” after Christ’s as¬ 
cension. All agree that it took place on the day 
of Pentecost. There was, then, on the day of 
Pentecost a-great divine baptism. How was it per¬ 
formed ? The attempts of Baptists to answer this 
question have produced pome rich specimens of Bib¬ 
lical interpretation,—“precious morsels,” indeed. 
Hr. Carson says, “The disciples were immersed 
into the Holy Spirit: they were literally covered 
with the appearance of wind and fire, —completely 
covered with the emblems of the Spirit.” (P. 107.) 
Just to think of the disciples buried in the appear¬ 
ance of wind! How sensible ! How easy of com¬ 
prehension ! The “exiled minister of the Associate 
Eeformed Church” tells us, from Ohio, that “they 
were literally immersed in significant sound”!! and 
that “ the word ekcheo [poured out] is used to denote 
the superabundance, and not to express the manner” I 


192 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


(Pp. 169, 170.) But,” says he, have no 

desire to undermine and destroy the meaning of 
ekcheo” (P. 150.) Oh, no, not at all! He only 
desired to put it out of the way for this once,— 
until he had dipped the disciples “in significant 
sound” !! Pengilly, who with so much pretended 
meekness undertakes to give a full exhibit of “ the 
various portions of Scripture relating to baptism,” 
never alludes to this divine baptism of Pentecost. 
It seems to have been too tough a case for him to 
undertake. Dr. Fuller says that “ there was a real 
immersion.” (P. 85.) We ask, in what? He says, 
“Jesus compares the Spirit to wind;'’ and that “on 
that day ^suddenly there came a sound from heaven 
as of a rushing might}- wind, and it filled all the 
house where they were sitting.’” The italicizing 
is his own; the impression which he seeks to make 
is plain. The disciples were immersed in wind! 
But how was it with the ? John said that 
Christ would “ baptize with fire and this was the 
literal fulfillment of it. Were the disciples im¬ 
mersed in the cloven tongues of flame? The Bap¬ 
tist world is silent. Ho answer has been attempted. 
There stirs not even “the appearance of wind”! 
But we turn to the inspired accounts of the trans¬ 
action :—“ And when the day of Pentecost was 
fully come, suddenly there came a sound from 
heaven; . . . and there appeared unto them cloven 
tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them^ 
and they were filled with the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 
ii. 1, 2.) Peter says of Cornelius and his friends, 
“The Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the 
BEGINNING.” (Acts X. 44.) “ God . . gave them 


SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE, 193 

the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us” John says, 
“ I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a 
dove, and it abode upon him.” (John i, 32.) Peter 
says of the baptism of Pentecost, ^^This is that 
which was spoken by the prophet Joel, ... I will 
POUR OUT my Spirit. . . . Jesus, having received 
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath 
SHED FORTH this which ye now see and hear.” 
(Acts ii. 16, 17, 33.) Peter and John prayed for 
the people of Samaria, that they might receive the 
Holy Ghost ] for as yet he had fallen upon none 
of them.” (Acts viii. 15, 16.) ‘^God anointed 
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost.” (Acts x. 
38.) “While Peter yet spake, the Holy Ghost 
FELL on all them which heard the word. And 
they of the circumcision were astonished, . . . 
because that on the Gentiles also was poured out 
the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts x. 44, 45.) Paul 
speaks of “the Holy Ghost which he sued on us.” 
(Tit. iii. 6.) Peter speaks of the first minister as 
having “ preached the gospel, with the Holy Ghost 
SENT DOWN from heaven.” (1 Peter i. 12.) And in 
Ephesians i. 13 we have the phrase “sealed with 
the Holy Spirit.” 

Now, we are very gravely reminded that this 
falling, descending, pouring out upon, shedding forth, 
falling upon, &c. denotes one thing, but the results 
thereof another thing. We are told that it was 
not the pouring that constituted the baptism, but 
the consequence of the pouring. Very well: if 
our Baptist friends can gain any thing by the dis¬ 
tinction, we have no great objection to it. But 
the pouring out or shedding forth unquestionably 
17 


194 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


gives THE MODE of that result. It gives the action 
of tlie case, and the only action of the case. We 
do not saj that the pouring out was the baptism; 
but we do say that it was the mode of it, and that, 
so far as mode enters into this baptism, that mode 
was POURING OUT UPON. There it is. God’s own 
Spirit says it. And God’s own Sj^irit knows how 
it was done. Baptist critics tell us that the pour¬ 
ing was Si figure; but of what? It was not a figure 
of the Spirit. It was not a figure of any quality 
of the Spirit. If a figure of any thing, it must be 
a figure of some action. It must figure motion. 
And that motion is the coming down of the bap¬ 
tizing element from above upon the subject. Make 
that element sound, or make it wind, or make it 
the appearance of wind, or make it fire and wind, 
it is all the same: this baptism was by pouring 
upon, by shedding forth : the mode was affusion. 

But we deny that there was any ‘^wind” in the 
case, or that there was any ^‘appearance of wind.’^ 
A “sound” there was; but we deny that the sound 
was the Spirit. It was only the indication of the 
Sjhrit’s approach. The sensible form of the Holy 
Ghost, assumed on this occasion, was “cloven 
tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of 
them.” There was a shower of flame-like flakes 
alighting upon the heads of the favored ones, 
symbolizing the light, and purifying power, and 
heavenly inspirations that were being poured upon 
their waiting souls. And this was the baptism 
with the Holy Ghost. Whether the copiousness 
of the glorious gift was of a degree to deluge the 
subject or not, it was by descent upon him,—by 


SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE. 195 

applying the element to him, and not by thrusting 
him into the element. Admit every thing that 
the invention of irnmersionists has devised to 
figure out immersion: the mode still remains the 
same, and refuses to yield. ^‘The Holy Ghost 
FELL ON THEM.’^ The Spirit was ‘^poured out.’^ 
Indeed, the Baptist annotator Hackett calls it an 
^‘effusion/’ and says, “the fire-like appearance pre¬ 
sented itself at first, as it were, in a single body, 
and then suddenly parted in this direction and 
that, so that a portion of it rested upon each of 
those present.^^ (Acts ii. 3.) This wholly excludes 
all idea of immersion. 

And again: if baptizo includes mode, and that 
mode is immersion, then the idea of immersion 
must fit and harmonize with all these scriptural 
allusions to mode in connection with the subject 
of baptism. That it does not thus fit, the follow¬ 
ing crwm will show:—“This is that 

which was spoken : . . . I will immerse out my Spirit 
upon all flesh.“I saw the Spirit immersing from 
heaven like a dove.^^ “Jesus hath immersed, forth 
this which ye now see and hear.’’ “As yet the 
Holy Ghost had immersed upon none of them.” 
“On the Gentiles also was immersed out the gift of 
the Holy Ghost.” “The Holy Ghost, which he 
immersed on us.” “The Holy Ghost immersed 
down from heaven!” How ridiculous and shock¬ 
ing would be such readings! And the whole 
ground of the difficulty thus exhibited lies in this: 
that the Scriptures contemplate the application of 
the baptismal element to the subject, and frame 
their language accordingly; but Hr. Fuller’s theory 


196 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


contemplates the application of the subject to the ele* 
ment. And the language which describes the one 
operation cannot possibly be construed with that 
which describes the other. 

So far, then, as concerns the baptism of the 
Spirit, the doctrine that the subject must be 
plunged into the baptismal element in order to be 
baptized is not only without scriptural foundation, 
but in absolute contradiction to every word which 
the Spirit of God itself has employed to describe 
the mode of one of its own operations. The 
whole description implies and relates to affusion. 
There is not one single expression that will tole¬ 
rate the idea of immersion. 

And if the idea of affusion is thus divinely 
appropriated as descriptive of the baptism by the 
Holy Ghost, what is more natural than to infer 
that the same mode holds good and is agreeable to 
the divine mind with regard to the baptism by 
water? There is necessarily a close resemblance 
between them. In many passages the same ex¬ 
pressions are applied to both. The record of 
water-baptism presents exactly the same construc¬ 
tion as the record of the baptism by the Spirit. 
Indeed, one is the type of the other. And, in the 
absence of direct proof to the contrary, are we not 
bound to believe that the mode in one is corres¬ 
pondent with the mode in the other? When 
Peter saw the Holy falling on Cornelius and 

his friends, his mind instantly recurred to the bap¬ 
tism of John. ‘‘Then remembered I, . . . John 
indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be bap¬ 
tized with the Holy Ghost.’’ What laws of 


SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE. 197 

iTiental association could thus cany him hack 
from the contemplation of the affusion of the 
Spirit to a water-haptism, unless that water-bap¬ 
tism was performed by a similar affusion? 

We look next at the baptism of Christ spoken 
of in Luke xiii. 50, Mark x. 38, Matt. xx. 22, 23. 
This is uniformly understood Ori^en, Gregory 
Nazianzen, Augustine, and all the Fathers, as a 
baptism of blood. But the Savior never was 
totally immersed in blood. In the garden he was 
only bedewed with drops oozing from his pores. 
On the cross he was merely 'stained with what 
trickled from his pierced hands, feet, and temples, 
and flowed from his wounded side. If we under¬ 
stand it of the wrath of God which he endured 
for sinners, that wrath is always spoken of as 
poured out: Ps. Ixix. 24, Ixxix. 6; Jer. x. 25; Ezek. 
vii. 8, xxi. 31; 2 Chron. xii. 7; Isa. xlii. 25; Jer. 
vii. 20; Lam. ii. 4; Ezek. xx. 33. If we under¬ 
stand it of the stripes and iniquities which he 
bore for the world’s salvation, these things are 
everywhere spoken of as laid on him: Isa. liii. 4, 
6, 8; I Pet. ii. 24. And it would be doing violence 
to the ordinary construction of language to read 
the Savior’s words as if he had said, “Are ye able 
to be immersed avith the immersion I am immersed 
with?” “I have an immersion to be immersed 
avith.” “Can ye he immersed with the immer¬ 
sion I am immersed with?” Hoav much more natu¬ 
ral and consistent to understand the question, 
“Can ye endure to have laid or poured upon you 
what I have laid upon me?” So that in regard to 
this baptism, as in regard to the baptism by the 


198 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Spirit, the entire phraseology of the Bible con¬ 
templates the application of the element to the 
subject in a way answering to affusion, and to 
affusion alone. 

We look next at the relation of the ordinance of 
Christian baptism to the old economy, to see what 
light can be gathered as to the mode of its admin¬ 
istration. Whatever Dr. Fuller may say to the 
contrary, the New Testament is the development 
of the Old Testament,—the flower of which that 
was the stem, the harvest of which that was the 
seed-time, the full-grown man of which that was 
the swaddling infant. All great and sound theo¬ 
logians, from Paul to the present moment, have 
uniformly so regarded it. Jesus, the great theme 
and substance of the New Testament, is the same 
of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did 
write. And there is not one marked particular in 
all the gospel that had not its dim beginning in 
the Old Testament. If we take Faith, Abraham 
was the very father of the faithful, and its most 
illustrious examples are found in the olden time: 
Rom. iv. 11, 16; Heb. xi. If we take the Atone¬ 
ment, the Lamb of God, which taketh away sin, 
was in the old sacrifices slain from the foundation 
of the world:” Rev. xiii. 8; Luke xxiv. 25, 27. 
If we take the Lord's Supper, it was but an extri¬ 
cation of the ancient Passover from its typical 
connections with the old covenant, and its con¬ 
tinuance under forms adapted to the transition 
which has long since been effected from prophecy 
to history: 1 Cor. v. 7. And so we are driven to 
infer that Baptism is also in some way developed 


SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE. 


199 


from germs which were planted in the ancient dis¬ 
pensation. Alexander Campbell says, ^^No person 
ever has understood—indeed, no person can fully 
understand—the Christian institution, without a 
thorough knowledge of the five books of Moses, 
as well as of the five historical books of the New 
Testament.^^ (Debate with Eice, p. 161.) 

As there was a Mosaic atonement and a Mosaic 
supper, so there were also Mosaic baptisms. Paul, 
in summing up the various services of the Levitical 
economy, says that they consisted of meats, 
and drinks, and divers baptisms.’^ (Heb. ix. 10.) 
What these various baptisms were, and how they 
were performed, we have already shown. But 
Paul speaks particularly of some of them, and 
gives the mode of their administration. He tells 
us of baptisms by the blood of bulls and of goats, 
and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean,’^ 
which ^‘sanctified to the purifying of the flesh’’ (Heb. 
ix. 13.) He tells us also of baptisms by ^Hhe 
blood of calves and of goats, water and scarlet wool, 
and hyssop sprinkled upon both the book and all 
the people.’^ (Heb. ix. 19.) And it is a fact that 
all the Old Testament ablutions, the mode of 
which was prescribed, without a single exception, 
were required to be performed by sprinkling. 
“ There is not a washing of the Levitical law 
having respect to persons, nor an important wash¬ 
ing of any kind, the mode of which, if there is 
any mode commanded, is not sprinkling.’' (De¬ 
bate, p. 206.) 

Now, these ancient baptisms, along with all the 
other particulars of the ceremonial law, the apostla 


200 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

designates as ^‘signs/^ shadows/’ patterns/^ 
FIGURES/or the times then present ” (Heb. ix. 9, 23, 
24.) In these typical baptisms the mode is speci¬ 
fically given. That mode is the sprinkling of the 
baptismal element upon the subject. If the pat¬ 
terns, therefore, were true, (and, when we consider 
that God himself made them, we are bound to 
conclude that they were true,) it follows that, in 
the administration of that higher and holier bap¬ 
tism which these ancient services prefigured, 
sprinkling is an appropriate mode, bearing upon it 
the express sanction of God himself Indeed, when 
the ancient prophet came to speak of the greater 
simplicity and power of the ordinances which 
Messiah should appoint, these Mosaic baptisms 
at once rose before his mind. The relation which 
they bore to what was to follow he distinctly 
foresaw. He notes the change which was to be 
made in the element,—from blood and water 
mingled with ashes to something more directly 
symbolic of spiritual purity; but no alteration in 
the manner or mode of its use. And in the name 
of Him who was to come he announced to the 
children of promise, Then will I sprinkle clean 
WATER UPON YOU, and ye shall be clean” (Ezek. 
xxxvi. 25.) We have already remarked that the 
Fathers interpreted this, as well as Ps. li. 7, Isa. 
i. 16, iv. 4, Mai. iii. 3, as predictions concerning 
the ordinance of the Christian baptism. 

Again, as remarked by Professor Wilson :—^‘In 
reading the Hew Testament, we are impressed 
with the perfect facility of administering baptism 
in all variety of circumstances. When residents 


SCRIPTURAL HINTS CONCERNING MODE. 201 

in Jerusalem believe, they are instantly baptized. 
When inhabitants of Samaria turn to the Lord, 
they are at once received into Christian fellow¬ 
ship by the same sacred rite. As the apostles go 
from house to house and travel from city to city, 
wherever there are converts, baptism is admin¬ 
istered promptly and without any apparent in¬ 
convenience. To the universality of this state¬ 
ment, so far as we are aware, there exists no 
exception. Let the character and bearing of this 
general fact be candidly estimated. Will truth 
permit the assumption that the cities and houses 
within the range of apostolic labor were more 
copiously supplied with water than cities and 
houses among ourselves at the present day? If, 
then, the matter were put to the test of experi¬ 
ment, would not the administration of baptism by 
dipping, in numerous places and houses, be at¬ 
tended with difficulties almost insuperable? Would 
it not in many instances be impracticable to im¬ 
merse a convert instantly and on the spot?’^ The 
author of this book knows of an instance in West¬ 
ern Maryland in which three converts to immer- 
sionism were required to wait four or five months 
before the region could furnish accommodations 
for them to be dipped. ‘^Yet, in New Testament 
baptisms, the administration, in every variety of 
circumstance, wears the appearance of the most 
perfect ease and convenience. It must be remem¬ 
bered, too, that during this early age there were 
no houses of worship, no baptisteries, and, in a 
word, no ecclesiastical facilities for immersion.” 
(Inf. Eapt. pp. 258, 259.) 


202 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


And, in addition to all this, the very signification 
of the word baptism, and of the sacrament of which 
it is the name, lays the foundation for an infer¬ 
ence that plunging is not a becoming mode for 
the administration of this rite. We have seen that 
it is uniformly employed by the Scriptures to 
denote purification. The whole meaning of the 
ordinance itself points to an inward cleansing 
wrought by the Holy Spirit of God. Immersion 
is not a symbol of purity. Its leading import is 
destruction. The sinking of a man always signi¬ 
fies degradation. The Hebrew word for immerse 
is expressly used in Job ix. 31 to denote the very 
opposite of purity. But the application of clean 
water to the subject is one of the liveliest images 
of purification that can be jiresented to the human 
mind. The Scriptures have again and again re¬ 
ferred to it in this very connection. Sprinkling and 
pouring water upon one is an ever-recurring image 
of moral cleansing. What does God say in Ezekiel 
xxxvi. 25?— Then will I sprinkle clean water upon 
you, and ye shall he clean: from all your filthiness 
and from all your idols will I cleanse you.’’ We 
may say that the sprinkling or pouring of water 
upon a subject is God’s own chosen image of 
spiritual purification. 

With all these facts before us, how can it be 
possible for any unprejudiced man to doubt 
whether affusion is a proper and divinely author¬ 
ized mode of administering the holy sacrament of 
Christian baptism? Who can look at them and 
in his heart believe that where there is no immer¬ 
sion there is no baptism, and that the great com- 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 203 

pany of Christ’s disciples are apostate from their 
Lord because they have not submitted to sectarian 
dictation as to the necessity of being plunged 
under the water? 


CHAPTEE Xy. 

BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 

What has now been elicited from the Scrip¬ 
tures respecting the mode of baptism must of 
itself be conclusive in favor of affusion, unless the 
most positive and commanding reasons to the con¬ 
trary are produced. Let us see, then, what Bap¬ 
tists have said upon this point 

Dr. Fuller says, My first argument is founded 
upon the force of the verb baptizo” But this is a 
mere begging of the question. The force of the 
word boptizo is the object of inquirj^ and the sub¬ 
ject of dispute. And for Dr. Fuller to argue that 
the New Testament baptisms were immersions 
because the word means immerse, and then to 
conclude that the word means immerse because 
the baptisms respecting which it is used were 
immersions, is about as ridiculous a specimen of 
reasoning in a circle as could well be found. It 
speaks badly for a grave doctor of divinity, and 
still worse for the merits of his cause We cer¬ 
tain I}’’ have proven beyond confutation that the 
word baptizo, in Christian language, denotes a 



204 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


religious purifying, without limitation as to mode; 
that it is applied to religious cleansings etfected 
in every variety of manner; and that there are 
instances abundant in which it can by no possi¬ 
bility mean immersion. We have also proven 
that the intimations as to mode in the baptism 
by the Holy Ghost, in the bloody baptism of 
Christ, and in the typical baptisms of the law of 
Moses, all favor affusion, and for the most part 
exclude immersion altogether. And for Dr. Fuller 
to argue that the New Testament baptisms were 
immersions because the word means immerse, 
wdien the meaning of the word is the point of 
inquiry, is ridiculous and absurd. 

“My second argument,’’ says he, “is drawn 
from the places chosen for baptism” That is to say, 
the places at which the baptisms of the New 
Testament were performed prove that they were 
immersions. Well, let us see how this is. 

One of the most remarkable baptisms recorded 
in the Bible was the baptism of the three thou¬ 
sand on the day of Pentecost. This was performed 
in the city of Jerusalem. Would Dr. Fuller have us 
believe that the city of Jerusalem was a lake, a 
river, “ a great conflux of water,” a general 
bathing-place for the nations of the earth? Jeru¬ 
salem was a mountain-city, with no living stream 
or natural sheet of standing water sufficient to 
immerse a man within fifteen miles of its location. 
We even have Baptist authority for this. And 
yet the places at which the New Testament bap¬ 
tisms were performed are to prove to us that they 
were immersions! 




BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 205 

But Dr. Fuller talks learnedly of cisterns^ pools^ 
and reservoirs, and gravely tells us that there were 
several such in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. 
He mentions Bethesda. But Wilde describes this as 
^^an immense, deep, oblong excavation.’^ Eobinson 
says it is seventy-five feet deep. How could three 
thousand be immersed in such a place in one day? 
Mr. Ewing thinks it doubtful whether it was 
possible for more than one or two persons to 
descend into this pool at a time ; and Mr. Carson 
himself concedes, “If my cause obliged me to 
prove that it admitted two, 1 grant that 1 
could not prove it.” What is said of it in John 
V. 1-4 can give us but little that is reliable, inas¬ 
much as all critics consider that passage exceed¬ 
ingly obscured and doubtful by spurious and 
questionable readings. Bethesda was certainly a 
receptacle for filth, surrounded by porches where 
sheep were washed, and receiving all the drainage 
of blood and otfal from the temple. Hammond, 
Michaelis, Kuinol, and others attribute its medici¬ 
nal properties to the warm blood and animal 
deposits which came into it in various ways from 
the sacrifices. And when we consider that the 
persons baptized were Jews, purified to attend the 
Pentecostal festival, and subject to a penalty of 
seven days’ defilement and exclusion if they should 
but touch any lifeless animal matter, it is simply 
preposterous to suppose for one moment that the 
three thousand, or any portion of them, were 
plunged in such a pit of filth in order to be puri¬ 
fied into Jesus Christ. 

Besides Bethesda there was but one other open 
18 


206 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


pool, SO far as we know, within the walls of Jerusa¬ 
lem ,—the fish-pool by the fish-market. This evi¬ 
dently was also a sort of drain for the water and 
filth which would constantly be accumulating 
where fish for the entire city were handled and 
sold. There is not one word of testimony that it 
ever was a bathing-place. Outside of the city, 
and supplied with a feeble, irregular stream from 
under the wall, was the pool of Siloam, described 
by Lynch as a deep, oblong pit” Its depth was 
at least nineteen feet. It was a place about as 
much adapted to immerse in as our ordinary 
cisterns and wells. As to the upper and lower 
pools of Gihon and the pool of Hezekiah, all of 
which were some distance from the city, it is the 
uniform testimony of travelers that they are ever 
dry except in seasons of rain. The celebrated 
pools of Solomon, which supplied water to the 
citizens of Jerusalem, were about twelve miles 
from the city. 

The statement of D’Arvieux is worth considering 
in this connection. Of most of the houses in Jeru¬ 
salem he says, ‘ ^ They are only one story rai sed above 
the ground-floor. Their roofs are of stone, and are 
formed into terraces: they contain cisterns to pre¬ 
serve the rain-water which is collected on the ter¬ 
races,—an attention absolutely necessary in this 
city, which includes neither wells, fountains, nor 
streams.’’ An officer who accompanied Sydney 
Smith during the war says, At Jerusalem, rain had 
not fallen during nine months.” And, what is very 
unfortunate for the Baptist theory, the account of 
the baptism of the three thousand says not a word 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 207 

about cisternS; pools, reservoirs, baptisteries, or 
any thing of the sort: no, nor one word from 
which to infer that the awakened multitudes ever 
removed from the spot on which they received 
their convictions until after their baptism had 
been performed. 

Our Baptist friends have fallen into a curious 
way of arguing in this connection. They insist 
that the only reason why John took ‘‘ all the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem’’ out to the Jordan and 
to Enon was that he might have an adequate 
supply of water in which to immerse them. Now, 
if this was the reason why he took them to the 
river and to Enon, it must argue as strongly for 
the NON-immersion of the three thousand as for 
the immersion of John’s converts. If he had to 
take his disciples out to Enon and the Jordan to 
find conveniences for immersing them, it proves 
that there were no such conveniences about 
Jerusalem. Either, then, they must give up the 
point w^hich they claim,— that John selected 
Enon’s many waters for the sake of facilities 
for immersion,—or they must admit that Jerusa¬ 
lem did not furnish such facilities. They may take 
which side of the dilemma they choose, and it 
makes sad inroads upon their theory that all bap¬ 
tisms are immersions. 

Seeing, however, that his cause is so hopeless in 
connection with the pools^ our author directs atten¬ 
tion to the little brook Kedron, as furnishing 
abundant water.” But, unfortunately again, nine 
months in the year Kedron is dry! So says Vol¬ 
taire. So says Kitto in his Natural History of 


208 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Palestine. When Spencer visited it it was dry. 
All the time Maundrell stayed at Jerusalem there 
was not a drop of water in it. So it was when 
Wilde saw it. So also when Stevens saw it. 
Indeed, Mr. Samson himself, a Baptist whose 
wonderful personal observations about Jerusalem 
are greatly relied on by the Lewisburg Professor 
and the editor of ‘^The True Union,remarks 
that ‘‘the brook Kedron, as the original term indi¬ 
cates, is nothing hut the bed through which the 
rains of winter drain off between the eastern wmll 
of the city and Mount Olivet; and its channel is 
therefore dry in early spring, several weeks before 
THE period in the month of June when the Feast 
op Pentecost occurred.” (Baptismal Tracts for 
the Times, p. 16.) Wells, in his Geography, or 
his editor, says, “ This brook answered the pur¬ 
pose of a drain to the lands around the city of 
Jerusalem after rains, and possibly might answer 
the same purpose to some of the suburbs of the 
city and receive their underground discharges. 
Hence, perhaps, its name, black.” A gentleman 
English traveller says, “I cannot recollect to have 
seen any stream or pool near Jerusalem sufficient 
to allow the immersion of an adult person. The 
brook Kedron was so nearly dried up, that I do 
not believe a boy or girl could in any point of its 
channel, near Jerusalem, have found depth enough 
for immersion. I believe I saw no water between 
Jaffa and Jerusalem [thirty-eight miles] in which 
a man or woman could have been immersed.” 
And Ewing remarks, “ I cannot help mentioning 
that in no history, sacred or profane, have 1 read 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 209 

of any persons sivimming in or near the city of 
9crusaleni. Many calamitous deaths have at dif¬ 
ferent times befallen its inhabitants: among all 
these, do we ever meet with an instance of drown¬ 
ing in that place or neighborhood? Herod the 
Great, indeed, who was reigning in Jerusalem at 
the time of our Savior’s birth, caused his son 
Aristobulus to be drowned; but we are told that 
for that purpose he sent him to Jericho.” (See 
Josephus, Antiq. liber i. cap. 22.) So that the 
resort to Kedron is even more desperate than 
to the pools. 

Hr. Fuller sees that it will not answer for him 
to leave matters in such an unfavorable aspect. 
He must needs give them a better gloss, though 
he should have to resort to his old expedient of 
altering the sense of the record itself. On page 
"^7 he solemnly declares that “ it is nowhere said 
[of the three thoumnd'] that they were baptized in one 
day” Let the reader, then, take his Bible and 
examine the second chapter of Acts. A solemn 
scene is there spread before us. Peter, just 
filled with the Holy Ghost, stands forth as the 
preacher of Jesus to listening thousands. His 
hearers melt under his burning words and call 
out to know what they must do. “ Peter said 
unto them, Eepent and be baptized, every one of 
you.” “ Then” —not in the course of a few days, 
as they could find places to immerse in, but 

then” (men oun )—in the course of the trans¬ 
action then present, in immediate continuance 
of what went before— Then they that gladly re¬ 
ceived his word were baptized^ and the same day 


210 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


there were added to them about three thousand souls” 
Of coursej none were added to the disciples but 
those who gladly received Peter’s word; and 
baptism was the divinely appointed method by 
means of which men were to be added to the list 
of Christ’s acknowledged disciples. And yet they 
that gladly received his word were “ then” bap¬ 
tized, ‘^AND the same day there were added to 
them about three thousand souls.” If this does 
not mean that they were all baptized in one day, 
it is useless to rely upon language as a means of 
communication. 

So far, then, from proving that the baptism of 
the three thousand was performed by immersion, 
the place and circumstances lead us inevitably to 
conclude that it was done in some much more 
convenient and summary manner. The whole 
occurrence was sudden, unexpected, and without 
previous forethought or preparation for the exi¬ 
gencies which must have arisen upon the supposi¬ 
tion that the subjects were all to be immersed. 
There was no water in or about Jerusalem for the 
immediate immersion of such multitudes. There 
were but eleven or twelve present who had re¬ 
ceived the ministerial commission to baptize and 
that were competent administrators of this sacra¬ 
ment. It must have been late in the day when 
the baptizing commenced. Peter began his dis¬ 
course about nine o’clock, (Acts ii. 15.) It was 
of long continuance, consisting of ^‘many other 
words” more than are on record, (ii. 40;) and the 
confusion incident upon conducting such a multi¬ 
tude to a place fit for immersion must have con- 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 211 

sumed much time and greatly hindered the speedy 
execution of the work. So that, though Dr. Fuller 
may make himself merry over Dr. Kurtz's arith¬ 
metical process, he must remember that “figures 
do not lie," and that it is mathematically demon¬ 
strable that no twelve men under heaven could 
have immersed three thousand in the limited time 
and amid the embarrassing circumstances in which 
that baptism certainly was performed. And, if 
the thing was so plain and easy as he pretends, 
if he is not himself overcome by the numerous 
impossibilities which hamper and cripple the im¬ 
mersion theory, we ask him why he is so anxious 
to make it appear, even at the expense of pervert¬ 
ing the record, that the three thousand were not 
baptized in one day. Why take to a resort so 
extreme, unless conscious that his cause is lost 
without it? 

Yet Dr. Fuller would have his readers believe 
^Hhere would have been no sort of difficulty in 
baptizing [immersing~\ more than three thousand in 
a part of a day." And he quotes what he calls 
facts’’ as “the shortest argument to prove it." 
He says that Chrysostom “did immerse about 
three thousand on the 16th of April, 404, though 
twice interrupted"! that Bishop Bemigns “im¬ 
mersed Clovis and three thousand of his subjects, 
aided by his presbyters,"—but whether in one day 
or not is not stated; that he himself has immersed 
“between one and two hundred" in “a very short 
time." So Booth says, “Mr. John Fox informs us 
that Austin the monk baptized and christened ten 
thousand Saxons, or Angles, in the west river, be- 


212 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


side York, on a Christmas day!’’ that ^^a single 
clergyman baptized in one day above five thousand 
Mexicans, and did not desist till he was so ex¬ 
hausted by fatigue that he was unable to lift up 
liis hands”! and that Francis Xavier ^‘baptized 
fifteen thousand in one day”! Alas that the race 
of giants is extinct! Such instances of endurance 
are not heard of nowadays. The author of 
Scripture Directory for Baptism” says, 
gentleman of veracit}^ told the writer that he was 
once present when forty-seven men were dipped in 
one day in the usual way. The first operator began 
and went through the ceremony until he had 
dipped twenty-five jpersons, when he was so fatigued 
that he was compelled to give it up to the other, 
who, with great apparent difficulty, dijiped the 
other twenty-two. Both appeared completely 
EXHAUSTED.” And, if the dipping of twenty was 
hard work for one day for one 'man, how could a 
man go through with two hundred and seventy^ 
which would have been about the proportion fall¬ 
ing to each apostle on the day of Pentecost? Sup¬ 
posing that water and all the conveniences for 
immersion were at hand, could the dipping of so 
many have been performed by one man in so short 
a time? Well has Dr. Miller said, “To imagine 
this would be among the most improbable, not to 
say extravagant, imaginations that could be formed 
on such a subject.” The stories to which our 
Baptist friends refer on this point, taken as they 
give them, are simply ridiculous and incredible. 
Professor Wilson justly says, “ The man who re¬ 
ceives them will require no prejiaration for swal- 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 213 

lowing the absurd miracles performed by all the 
saints in the Eomish calendar.He has been 
turned aside unto fables, given over to believe 
a lie. 

Look next at the case of the jailer and his family, 
(Acts xvi.) They were baptized in a prison at Phi¬ 
lippi. Hr. Fuller tells us that Philippi was a place 
of springs. Perhaps he may yet discover that it 
was a place of reservoirs and pools! But the 
question is, were these ‘‘confluxes of water’^ in the 
jail, where the baptism occurred, and was the jail 
such a place as to beget the belief that said baptism 
was performed by immersion? He gives it as his 
opinion, notwithstanding the springs, that Paul 
took the jailer and his family out at midnight to 
some river ! He seems to forget Paul’s exhaustion 
from stripes, chains, fasting, vigils, and prayers, 
and that Paul peremptorily refused to leave the 
prison until he was publicly taken out by the 
authorities that thrust him in, (v. 37,) and that 
the account says the baptism took place during 
the exciting scenes of the night,— parachrema, on 
THE SPOT. “ Indeed,’’ says Hr. Clarke, “ all the 
circumstances of the case, the dead of the night, 
the general agitation, the necessity of despatch, 
and the words of the text, all disprove that there 
was any immersion.” 

“I by no means think it incredible,” says Ewing, 
“that there should have been a bath in the jailer’s 
house at Philippi; but there is not a hint in all the 
Bible about the use of a bath for the purpose of 
baptizing, more than about the use of a basin. 
Water was brought (I know not in what vessel) to 


214 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


wash their stripes, and water was brought to bap¬ 
tize the family. Every house-baptism supposes 
water to be brought and the bajitized to receive 
the affusion on his face from the hand of the bap- 
tizer. The argument that ‘there was a bath in 
the jail at Philippi, because there is a very fine tank 
in the jail at Calcutta, and always is one to be 
found in an Eastern jail,’ may be illustrated in this 
manner:—There was a stove in the jail at Philippi, 
because there is a very fine one in the jail at St. 
Petersburg, and always is one to be found in a 
Northern jail.” (P. 172.) 

Look at the baptism of Saul of Tarsus. This 
was performed m the sick-chamber: at least, so the 
Evangelist leaves us to infer. For three days this 
smitten persecutor lay, a blind, exhausted, and 
helpless invalid, upon his bed. By direction of God, 
Ananias came to him and stated to him his mission, 
and touched him, and he arose from his couch and 
was baptized, and meat was given him, and he was 
strengthened: Acts xix. 1-19. What room is here 
to infer immersion ? 

Our Baptist friends have shown some fine powers 
of imagination in connection with this case to fill 
out what the Holy Ghost has lacked, in making 
things harmonize with the immersion theory. The 
good Father Taylor breaks out, very poetically, 
“ See what a heavenly hurry Saul was in, though 
weakened down by a distressing fast. Behold him, 
with great weakness of body and load of his guilt, 
staggering along to the water! I almost fixncy that 
I see the dear little man (he was afterward called 
Paul, which signifies little) hanging on the shoulders 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 215 

of Ananias, and hurrying him up, with his right arm 
around him, [.' !~\ aod, as they walked on, sajdng, Be of 
good cheer, brother Saul; when you are baptized, 
your -sins, or the guilt of them, shall be washed 
away.^^!!! Alexander Campbell also speaks of Paul 
and Ananias “o/i tKeir way to the water, and of Paul 
“on his return from the water” (Debate with Eice, 
p. 228.) But the mischief to all their poetry is 
that the Bible says not one word about all this. 
There is nothing of going down to the water or 
of coming up from the water. Nor are such expres¬ 
sions ever used when baptism is said to have oc¬ 
curred within-doors. “ It is also observable,^’ says 
■Ewing, “ that, after a fast of three days, Paul was 
baptized before he had received either meat or 
strength: (verses 18, 19.)” He “arose and was 
baptized” on the spot; and all beyond this is like 
Father Xavier’s immersion of fifteen thousand in 
one day—all fiction. 

Look at the case of the eunuch. He was bap¬ 
tized on his journey through the desert. Is a desert 
a place of “ confluxes of water” ? Does the place 
here argue immersion? The water at which it was 
done is described, by Eusebius, Jerome, Eeland, and 
even Mr. Samson, as a fountain boiling up at the 
foot of a hill and absorbed again by the soil 
from which it springs. How absurd to talk of 
immersion as argued from such a locality! Mr. 
Samson, from personal observation of the place, 
finds it impossible to get through with the im¬ 
mersion theory without supposing some artificial 
reservoir or other fixture. (Baptismal Tracts, p. 
160.) What a mania for cistern-digging must have 


216 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


possessed these Jews, that they should fill even the 
desert with pools! 

Cornelius and his friends were most likely bap¬ 
tized in his own house. The language of Peter— 
^‘Can any man forbid water, that these should not 
be baptized —indicates with a good degree of 
certainty that no more water was used than 
could be conveniently conveyed to him. How can 
this argue immersion ? All room for fancy to 
figure out a walk to the river is here cut off. The 
water ivas brought to the candidates, not the subjects 
led out to the water. And, as the bringing of the 
water proves narrow limitations as to quantit}^, it 
excludes all idea of immersion. Indeed, Mr. Munro 
has hit exactly upon the truth where he says, 
“Among the myriads of baptisms of which we 
read in the Acts of the Apostles, with the single 
exception of that of the eunuch, there is not a hint 
about going to or from any pool or river.’^ The 
places, then, cannot prove immersion as the mode 
of baptism. 

But John^s baptism! Ay, John's baptism! But 
John's baptism was not Christian baptism. All 
theologians agree to this. Baptists themselves 
have been forced to concede it. Eobert Hall was 
a Baptist, a scholar, and a full-hearted man of 
God. He gives a long and unanswerable argu¬ 
ment, showing that John’s baptism was a wholly 
different thing from the ordinance instituted by 
Jesus Christ. (See his Works, vol. i. p. 294.) The 
distinguished Hr. J. H. Kurtz, of Horpat, in his 
Manual of Sacred History, says, “The baptism of 
John does not possess the rank and character of 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 217 

Christian baptism. The former was merely a 
symbol*; the latter is a sacrament: the former was. 
according to the declaration of John himself, a 
baptism with water unto repentance; the latter is 
a baptism with water and the Holy Ghost, whereby 
the great salvation is fully appropriated; and, in 
the case of the disciples of Jesus, it was a baptism 
with fire and the Holy Ghost.'' (P. 278.) Mr. 
Carson says the two were ^^essentially different’^ 
Nevertheless, Dr. Fuller argues that John baptized 
in (at) Jordan; that he must therefore have im¬ 
mersed the people in the water; and that there¬ 
fore all other baptisms were immersions and 
nothing else! As well might he argue that, as 
‘‘John baptized in the wilderness," he immersed 
the people in the sand, and that therefore all 
baptisms are immersions in the sand ! John also 
baptized “m Bethabara, beyond Jordan.” This is 
the name of a town. Where it was located is not 
precisely known. Lightfoot says “ it was situated 
in the Scythopolitan country, where the Jews 
dwelt among the Syrophenicians." It certainly 
was neither a lake, nor a pool, nor a river; and 
how can it prove that John immersed ? John also 
baptized “ m or at Enon, near to Salim.” Enon 
means the fountains of On. And if deep water, 
convenient for immersion, was the object of the 
baptizer in selecting this spot for his operations, 
why did he leave the river for a few springs? Dr. 
Fuller thinks it very ridiculous to suppose that 
mills driven by water are built upon firm streams 
merely to supply drink for the people who may 
visit them with their horses and mules ! But, when 
19 


218 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


we see these same establishments performing their 
offices with equal facility where there are no firm 
streams, is it not equally ridiculous to insist that 
they are water-mills at all? 

But we are told “John was baptizing in or at 
Enon, because there were (Jiiidata jpolla') many waters 
there.’’ It is indeed not a little amusing to see 
how Baptist writers comment upon this phrase. 
Dr. Fuller wishes to make it appear that hudata 
polla means “ a great conflux of water.” He 
quotes a number of passages, such as, “ His voice 
was as the sound of many waters “ I heard a voice 
from heaven, as the voice of many waters;” “The 
Lord is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, 
than the waves of the sea;” “The noise of their wings 
was as the noise of many waters, as the voice of the 
Almighty ” Dr. Eyland sa^^s that the phrase indi¬ 
cates a body of water the sound of which resembles 
mighty thunderings, the sound of a cataract, or 
the roaring of the sea, and that it is a Hebraism 
corresponding with mim rabim, wffiich signifies 
many w’aters, such as the waves of the sea. What 
an array! If we were to listen to these Baptist 
commentators, Niagara itself is but “a tinkling 
rill” compared with these fountains of On between 
Salim and the Jordan ! Well may we exclaim, 
“Happy Enon! ennobled by such mighty associa¬ 
tions, by such magnificent alliances !” But, after 
all, the question narrows itself down to one of 
simple geograph}^. Was there ever a collection of 
springs, or any body of water, in any district of 
the land of Judea, in any locality accessible to John 
the Baptist, by which these allusions to mighty 


BAPTIST ARGUxMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 219 

thunders, cataracts, and seas can in the remotest 
degree be justified? Such a cluster of springs 
would have been the wonder of Judea and of the 
world. The memory of such waters could not have 
perished. The traces of them would still be seen, 
and some faint echoes of their thunders would cer¬ 
tainly have reached our times. And yet Dr. Ful¬ 
ler says, ^‘7 grieve to find several writers venturing to 
assert that the location of Enon is known!’' (P. 65.) 
Alas that such a wonder in nature should have thus 
perished without leaving a trace behind it! Eu¬ 
ropean and American travelers have explored the 
Jordan from Tiberias to the Dead Sea; but none of 
them have ever seen any thing of this wonderful 
discharge of waters. In a whole day’s journey 
down the Jordan, from the region of Scythopolis, 
(eight miles south of which Enon is said to have 
been located,) Lieutenant Lynch found no streams 
emptying into the Jordan except such as scarcely 
rose in consequence above mere trickling rivulets. 
In the time of Napoleon the French had a corps of 
horse at Scythopolis, and roamed the country down 
the Jordan, particularly exploring it on the west; 
but nothing did they find answering to the Baptist 
Enon. All that history has preserved respecting 
this wonderful fountain is what Jerome repeats 
from Eusebius, that it was eight miles from 
Scythopolis, south, between Salim and the Jordan. 
Calmet knows nothing about it. And from the 
time of Israel’s exodus to the present hour such 
a thundering fountain as Drs. Fuller and Eyland 
speak of has remained unknown to our ablest 
geographers, to our most adventurous and ob- 


220 


THE BAPTIST SYSTExM EXAMINED. 


servant travelers, and to our most inquisitive 
men. It is enough to say, there never was such 
an Enon. Sandys, according to Hamilton, says 
that Enon are little springs gushing out, whose 
waters are soon absorbed by the sands.^^ And, 
until some Baptist writer produces some accurate 
geographical description of the fountains of On, to 
persist in comparing Enon with the Euphrates, 
the Tigris, Niagara, and mighty thunderings is in¬ 
deed “sinning by excess.^' 

But does not John say “there was much water 
there’^ ? So the English Bible reads. In the original, 
however, the phrase is hudata pollay which Beza 
and Professor Stuart render ^^many streams or 
rivulets” Dr. Fuller says that ^^hudor” never 
means But Donnegan says it is from 

the word huo,—to wet, to asperse, to rain ,—and that 
it often signifies only the drops of falling rain ! De¬ 
mosthenes against Callicles uses it in this sense. 
And if Dr. Fuller will take the Septuagint and 
turn to 2 Kings ii. 19, he will find “ hudata” ap¬ 
plied to waters which Maundrell describes in these 
words :—“ They are at present received in a basin 
about nine or ten paces long and five or six broad, 
and, thence issuing out in good plenty, divide them¬ 
selves into several small streams, dispersing their 
refreshment to all the field and rendering it exceed¬ 
ingly fruitful.’' (Taylor’s Facts and Evidences, p. 
176.) And if he will refer to 2 Chron. xxxii. 4, he 
will find the same phrase applied to a number of 
small fountains. The record reads thus:—“So 
there was gatliered much people together, who 
Stopped all the fountains and the brook that ran 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 221 

through the midst of the land, saying, Why should 
the King of Assyria come and find \j)olla liudata] 
many waters '’— supplies to satisfy the wants of 
HIS ARMY ? We would therefore be fully authorized 
to adopt the reading, “John was baptizing at the 
fountains of On, because there were many streams 
therethat is, not many streams to immerse in, 
but many streamlets of fountain-water, better 
suited than the Jordan to meet the wants of the 
vast multitudes who came to hear the prophet’s 
preaching. 

Professor Stuart says, “A single brook of very 
small capacity, but a living stream, might, with 
scooping out a small place in the sand, answer 
most abundantly all the purposes of baptism by 
immersion, and answer them just as well as many 
waters could. But, on the other hand, a single 
brook would not sufiice for the accommodation of 
the great multitudes who flocked to John. The 
sacred writer tells us that ‘there went out to him 
Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region of 
Jordan,’ and they were baptized by him. Of 
course there must have been a great multitude of 
people. Kothing could be more natural than for 
John to choose a place that was watered by many 
streams, where all could be accommodated.” (Mode 
of Baptism, p. 38.) 

But Dr. Eyland tells us that hudata polla is a 
Hebraism equivalent to mim rabim, and challenges 
the production of proof that mim rabim is ever 
used as synonymous with small streams. But 
what is his challenge worth? In Numbers xxiv. 
7, this phrase is used to denote water poured out 
19 « 


222 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


of buckets. In Ezekiel xix. 10, it is used to denote 
the small streams which water vmeyards. What 
thundering confluxes of water these must have 

O 

been! 

As there is no testimony, therefore, that the 
waters at Enon were at all adapted to immersion, 
the great drift of proof going to show that it was 
a place of rivulets of spring-water and not of 
thundering cataracts, we demand of the Baptists 
to give a reason why John left the river, where 
alone facilities for immersion were found? Does 
not the fact of such a change, from the great river 
to mere fountain-streamlets, prove that John’s 
baptisms were not by immersion? 

It is useless, however, to pursue this point any 
further. John’s baptism was, at any rate, not our 
Christian sacrament; and there is no proof under 
heaven that Enon was any thing more .than a 
few springs, or that the ‘‘many waters there” were 
an^'' thing more than small streams issuing from 
contiguous sources. Indeed, if the Evangelist’s 
mind had been directed to the waters of Enon by 
the idea of immersion, it is reasonable to suppose 
that he would rather have spoken of the depth 
and magnitude of one stream than thus have called 
ofl‘ the attention to many. 

How John performed his baptisms cannot be 
decided with positive certainty; but there are a 
few facts bearing upon the subject, which, if 
assigned their proper weight, present a strong and 
commanding presumption that it was not by im¬ 
mersion. 

1. Although he for the most part performed his 



BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 223 

ceremony of purification where there was plenty 
of water, there is no proof that he ever went into the 
water to do it. The truth of this remark is so 
clear that the great Baptist champion, Mr. Carson, 
is compelled to concede it. “I think,says he, 
there is no reason to believe that John the Baptist 
usually went into the water in baptizing.’’ And, 
in order to make out immersion, he is driven to an 
invention of fanc}^ which thinking people must 
regard as a surrender of the cause. “The accounts 
lead me to conclude,” says he, “that John chose 
some place on the edge of the Jordan, that admitted 
the immersion of the person baptized while the baptizer 
remained on the margin,” and that hence “there is 
no ground for the jest that John the Baptist was 
an amphibious animal.” But in trying to avoid 
Scylla he has struck upon Charybdis. Who ever 
heard of a Baptist preacher administering his im¬ 
mersions without going into the water with his 
subjects? How can one man immerse another in 
water the surface of which is beneath his feet? 
And, if John could not have endured the amphi¬ 
bious life of going into the water with each of his 
multitudinous candidates, common sense will teach 
every man that he could not possibly have held 
out in the sort of operation assigned to him by the 
boasted “perspicacity” of Mr. Carson, “Jerusalem, 
and all Judea, and all the region round about 
Jordan” must needs denote a great many people. 
Mr. Thorn estimates the number at two millions. 
Mr. Godwin regards three hundred thousand as the 
probable number baptized,—an estimate in no way 
extravagant. Considering, then, that John’s minis- 


224 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


try lasted less than a year, we are forced to the 
conclusion that to have immersed them all would 
have been beyond the power of any man’s en¬ 
durance,—a physical impossibility. 

2. In all that is said about John’s baptizing, and 
of the multitudes of all classes who were baptized 
by him, there is not one even remote allusion to 
those preparations which immersion would have 
called for. Upon this point we prefer to express 
ourselves in the language of one who was himself 
for 3 "ears a Baptist minister:—“Every one who has 
been accustomed to baptize by immersion must 
certainly know that it is necessary, ivith respect 
to decency and safety, to change the dresses and 
to have separate apartments for men and women. 
This is evidently necessary, whether we baptize 
in a river or in a baptistery. JSTow, it is certain that, 
although we read of many baptizings, there is not 
the least intimation given either of changing the 
dress or of any suitable accommodation for the 
different sexes. This is true with reference to all 
the baptisms recorded in the New Testament. 
When our Lord washed his disciples’ feet, it is 
said he laid aside his garments. And Luke, speak¬ 
ing of those who stoned Stephen, says. They laid 
down their clothes at a young man’s feet whose 
name was Saul. Now, if the Scriptures take notice 
of the putting off' of garments for the purpose of 
washing feet and stoning a man, how comes it to 
pass that, as thousands, upon supposition they 
were baptized by immersion, must entirely have 
changed their garments, or have done worse, the 
Scnptures should not drop a single hint about it V* 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 225 

(Edwards on Baptism, p. 193.) And the act 
of baptizing,’’ says Mr. Ewing, ‘‘had consisted of 
immersing the subject in water, there would surely 
have been some allusion to the lowering of his 
body in that supine direction which is, I believe, 
commonly observed for the purpose of bringing it 
under the surface; some allusion also to that 
stooping attitude which is at the same time neces¬ 
sary on the part of the' immerser,” especially if 
he stood on the shore, “But there is nothing of 
this kind to be found in all the Scriptures, either in 
the accompanying phraseology or in the name of 
the ordinance itself.” Mr. Carson himself admits, 
“ I do not know a single reference of the kind.” 

Now, upon the supposition that John immersed 
in his baptisms, this silence of the Scriptures on 
these points is not a little surprising. Let the 
reader consider the case. “A native of Judea re¬ 
sorts to the ministry of John the baptizer, and, 
conscience-stricken by the preaching of that faith¬ 
ful man, is prompted to join the ranks of his dis¬ 
ciples. When he left his home, he had no more 
thought of baptism than of undertaking a voyage 
round the world. It would be therefore pre¬ 
posterous to suppose that he had made any pre¬ 
paration for an observance which could not possi¬ 
bly have entered into his previous calculations. 
Curiosity may have drawn him to the forerunner 
of the Messiah; but, before returning, he feels it a 
solemn duty to be baptized in the name of Him 
that was to come. The description does not pre¬ 
sent the case of a solitary individual: like a gene¬ 
ral term, it embraces its tens of thojisands. Now, 


226 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


on the hypothesis of immersion, we take leave to 
ask, were such parties dressed or undressed in sub¬ 
mitting to the ordinance? The question is a plain 
one, and should be met with a plain answer. It 
suggests the only practical alternative,—of baptism 
with their garments on, or baptism in a state of 
nudity; for no one will imagine that the audience 
of John came to his ministrations provided with 
the bathing-dresses of modern Baptists. Let our 
oj)ponents bring to the rescue of their system 
from this matter-of-fact dilemma a spirit of manly 
candor and Christian moderation. Dogmatism 
will not serve the purpose. Arising out of simple 
practical details, the difficulty cannot be removed 
by supercilious theorizing or the lofty announce¬ 
ment of general principles and laws of philology. 

. . . From Lightfoot, on Matthew hi. 6, we learn 
that when jiroselyte baptism was administered to 
a female, the Eabbis who rehearsed to her the pre¬ 
cepts of the law, while she remained in the water, 
retired as she immersed her head, leaving her in 
sole charge of attendants of her own sex. She 
was not, in fact, baptized by the ministers of the 
Jewish sanctuary; the hand of man was not per¬ 
mitted to press even her head beneath the water; 
and hence such prosetytes were said to have bap¬ 
tized themselves. Can we reconcile with the 
feelings of delicacy which dictated this course 
of extreme reserve the supposition of men and 
women publicly, not to say promiscuously, sub¬ 
mitting to baptism .by immersion in the Jordan? 
Do we not instinctively recoil from the idea of 
connecting a practice so indecent with the purest 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 227 

and most refined system of moral conduct ever 
promulgated to the world? If the difficulties of 
the case, as they will crowd on every reflective 
mind, are not insuperable, we ask, with all sin¬ 
cerity, how are they to be overcome? Was im¬ 
mersion the mode? Were the females dipped in 
their ordinary garments?—or how? . . . Dipping 
without divesting themselves of their garments 
would have been equally uncomfortable, danger¬ 
ous, and improbable.’^ (Wilson on Infant Baptism, 
pp. 259-261.) 

3. The manner in which John, in Matt. iii. 11, 
speaks of his baptism in comparison with the 
Savior’s baptism of the Spirit, is such as to dis¬ 
countenance the idea of immersion:—I indeed 
baptize you with water: he shall baptize you 
WITH the Holy Ghost and with fire.” He uses 
precisely the same phraseology with regard to his 
own baptism that he uses respecting the baptism 
b}^ the Holy Ghost. We have already seen that 
the baptism by the Holy Ghost is uniformly 
spoken of as being done by the pouring out, shed¬ 
ding forth, and falling of the baptismal element 
upon the subject. The inference therefore is 
legitimate and strong that the mode of action 
was the same in John’s baptism. The very word 
WITH shows that he applied the water to the sub¬ 
ject, and not the subject to the water. 

But Dr. Fuller very learnedly tells us that in 
the original of this passage the word translated 
with is en, and means in ,—“ in water,” “ in the 
Holy Ghost,” ^^in fire.” But such a criticism is 
simply ridiculous. All the lexicographers tell us 


228 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


that eUy with a substantive signifying the instru¬ 
ment or cause, always means with and nothing 
else. Even Mr. Carson, whose authority Dr. 
Fuller cannot feel himself very free to set aside, 
says, may be translated with. It signifies 
with in classic Greek, as well as in the Septuagint 
or New Testament. It is also as freely used with 
this verb (haptizo) in the heathen authors as in 
the Scriptures. To convince any one of this, it 
is necessary only to look over the examples which 
I have produced, both with respect to hapto and 
haptizo'^ (Carson on Bapt. pp. 122, 132.) In Num¬ 
bers XX. 20 we read, “Edom came out against 
him [en ochlo kai en cheire ischura] with much 
people and with a strong hand.’^ Judges xi. 
34:—“And Jephtha’s daughter came out to mee^ 
him [en tumpanois] with timbrels.” 1 Sam. xvii. 
43:—“Am I a dog, that thou comest to me [en 
midZo] WITH staves?” Verse 45:—“Thou comest 
to me [en romphxiay en doratiy kai en aspidi] with 
a sword, with a shield, and with a spear.” So 
Dr. Campbell sa^^s, “ I should not lay much stress 
on the preposition en, which, answering to the 
Hebrew heth, may denote with as well as in.” 
(Dissert, vol. iv. p. 128.) And if Dr. Fuller’s 
criticism is to stand, then we must read that the 
servant in Matthew traded in his talents, not with 
them; that Christ cast out devils in the finger of 
God, not with the finger of God; that Paul pro¬ 
posed to visit Corinth in a rod, not with a rod; 
that the Lord shall descend from heaven in the 
trump, not with the trump; and that the man- 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 229 

child in the Apocalypse is to rule all nations in 
a rod of iron, not with a rod of iron! 

And if we are asked why we render en liudati 
WITH watery and en to Jordane at the Jordan, our 
answer is ready. In the tirst instance en is joined 
with a substantive signifying means or cause, in 
the other with one denoting place. We read, 
“My servant lieth at home sick,” not in home; 
God set Jesus “ his own right hand in the 
heavenly places,” not in his own right hand; 
Christ accomplished his decease “ Jerusalem,” 
not in Jerusalem, for he “suffered without the 
gate;” John leaned on the Savior’s breast “ 
supper,” not in supper; Paul, in his voyage, “ar¬ 
rived at Samos and tarried at TrogyIlium,” cer¬ 
tainly not in Trogyllium, for how could a vessel 
anchor in a promontory? Indeed, Matthiac ob¬ 
serves that en is used with names of places when 
proximity alone is implied. 

But, if we even take Dr. Fuller’s translation of 
en, and say that John baptized in the Jordan, we 
have the highest Baptist authority that it does 
not necessarily mean in the water of Jordan^s 
stream. Dr. Carson says that an army may be 
said to fight in Troy, though never once entering 
inside the walls of Troy. He says that an ambus¬ 
cade, may be said to lie in the river (en potamo) 
when merely occupying the depressed grounds 
between the water and the remote outer banks; 
that Ulysses, after his shipwreck, spent the night 
(en potamo) in the river, although lie merely waited 
between the water and the acclivity which lined 
the valley through which the river passed. His 
20 


230 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


words are, might be in the river j yet not in 
the water: all within the banks is the river.(P. 
339.) So in 1 Samuel xv. 5 we read that Saul, 
with an army of “ two hundred thousand footmen, 
and ten thousand men of Judah, came and laid in 
wait EN TO CHEiMARRO,’’ —literally, the brook” 

This army only occupied the valley through 
which the brook ran. Our English Bible says 
they laid wait in the valley” Yet to be in the 
vale of a stream or river is said to be m the riverj 
though the water never once be entered or touched; 
and I)r. Carson says, no violence is done to the 
literal meaning of terms to speak of two hundred 
and ten thousand men encamped in the valley of 
a brook as being in the brook. Yery well, then : 
if John performed his ministrations in the valley of 
the Jordan, anywhere between its extreme outer 
acclivities, though never once coming in contact 
with the stream of its waters, it fulfills all the 
literal and natural meaning of en to Jordane, in the 
Jordan. Take the preposition as at or as in, it can¬ 
not bring the Baptizer or his disciples inside of the 
water, much less under it. To this Dr. Carson is 
witness; and so facts determine. Maundrell, in de¬ 
scribing this river, says, “After having descended 
the outermost bank, you go about a furlong upon a 
level strand before you come to the immediate bank 
of the river.’' Upon this strand of the Jordan valley 
meets the import of en Jordane. AVe are therefore 
fully authorized to say that John baptized with 
water at the Jordan, —a phraseology which leaves 
no room for the inference tlfat he immersed. 

4. It is an indisputable fact that the early Chris- 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE, 231 

tians have represented John as baptizing by af¬ 
fusion. 

Aurelius Prudentius, who wrote a.d. 390, speak¬ 
ing of John's baptism, says, “ Perfundit fluvio,'^ he 
poured water on them in the river. 

Paul in us. Bishop of Nola, a few years later, 
says, ‘^He [John] washes away the sins of be¬ 
lievers infusis lymphis” by the pouring of water. 

Bernhard, speaking of the baptism of our Lord 
by John, says, Infundit aquam capiti creatoris 
creatura,’' the creature poured water on the head 
of the creator. 

And with these statements agree many ancient 
pictures. We now have before us a copy of a 
representation in Mosaic of the baptism of Christ, 
preserved in the church in Cosmedin, at Bavenna, 
which was erected in the year 401. It presents 
the Savior standing in the margin of the Jordan, 
partially in the water, and John on a rock, with a 
shell in his hand, pouring water on the Bedeemer’s 
head. We have before us another, from the 
church on the Via Ostiensis, at Borne. The 
picture itself is on a plate of brass, partly en¬ 
graved and partly in relief. The door to which it 
is affixed bears date 1070; but the plate is much 
older than the door, and, from the inscriptions in 
Greek, is manifestly of Greek origin and agreed to 
be of very ancient workmanship. In this picture 
Christ is not even in the water, but standing near 
the stream, whilst John with a shell is pouring 
water on his head. Forming the centre-piece of 
the dome of a baptistery at Bavenna which was 
built and decorated in the year 454. we have an- 


232 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


other representation of the baptism of Christ. As 
in the one first named, he is standing partially in 
the water, and John, from a rock above, is pouring 
out water on his head. Of the genuineness and 
antiquity of these pictures there can be no reason¬ 
able doubt. And if those who made them and 
assigned them their places (though believed ordi¬ 
narily to have performed their own baptisms by 
immersion) entertained it as their fixed belief, at 
this early period, that John baptized by affusiouj 
are we not justified in presuming that he really 
did baptize something after the mode which they 
have represented in his baptism of Christ? 

But Dr. Duller argues that this cannot be, be¬ 
cause the record states that ‘‘Jesus, when he was 
baptized, went up straightway out of [apo'] the 
Avater.” How could he have come “owi of the 
water” unless he had been in it? But, even if he 
had been in it, that does not prove that he Avas 
under it. The young man in Tobit was in the 
river, but not under the Avater. Dr. Fuller often 
goes into the water and comes out of it without 
being under it. This itself would be a sufficient 
answer to the objection, though Ave are not necessi¬ 
tated to rest upon it. Dr. Fuller certainly Avill 
not contend that apo ordinarily means out of, much 
less from under. His master of Tubbermore says, 
“The proper translation of apo is from, and not 
out of. I deny that it ever signifies out of.” (Carson 
on Bapt. pp. 126, 137^ Jesus, therefore, only 
went up from the Avater, not out of it. Hay, more: 
if apo NEVER means out of, the demonstration is 
irresistible that John’s baptism was by affusion 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONCERNING MODE. 233 


and not by immersion; for if Jesus did not come 
out of the water he was not even in it, much less 
under it 

Is it not utterly unwarrantable, then, for any 
man to assert that the baptisms of John were total 
immersions? And if John’s baptisms in the vicinity 
of the river were not immersions, the Scriptures 
sjieak of no other baptisms where it would be less 
than insanity to pretend to argue immersion from 
the places at which they were performed 

Professor Wilson has a paragraph upon this 
general point, which we are tempted to quote, 
and which we transfer to our pages with the 
more freedom because his able and lucid work on 
this controversy has not met as yet with a pub¬ 
lisher in this country. ‘^The argument for im¬ 
mersion founded on the places,” says he, has 
always appeared to us to be feebleness personified. 
Yet that Baptists do allege this consideration in 
their own favor is unquestionable. How stand 
the facts of Scripture history? Out of nine or ten 
localities specified in the Hew Testament as the 
scenes of the administration of baptism, only two 
—Enon and the Jordan—possess a liberal supply 
of water. This fact will be found to grow in im¬ 
portance the more it is pondered, especiall 3 An con¬ 
nection with the efforts of Baptist writers to turn 
it to the account of immersion. Had the Scriji- 
ture instances uniformly associated the ordinance 
with ‘much water,’ or had this condition been 
realized in the majority of cases, their argument 
would have been plausible. But the divine record 
presents the reverse of all this. Much water is 
20 «' 


234 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


the exception, little water the rule. The ordinance 
could indeed be administered in the river Jordan 
and at the many streams of Enon; but so simple 
was the rite that its performance appears to have 
been equally convenient in a private house, a 
prison, or a desert. If, then, the volume of the 
Jordan is requisite to pour vigor into the Baptist 
argument for immersion, how sapless and feeble 
must that argupient become when its nutriment is 
drawn from the stinted supply of a prison or the 
thirsty soil of a wilderness! The very stress laid 
on the small minority of instances apparently 
favorable to immersion certifies for the strength 
of the opposing view, which claims for its basis 
the decided and overwhelming majority.’’ (Infant 
Baptism, pp. 257, 258.) 


CHAPTEE XYI. 

BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONTINUED. 

We come now to notice Dr. Fuller’s third and 
fifth arguments. The fourth we are at a loss to 
comprehend. He says, ‘Ht is based upon the act 
performed in baptizing” What act? His theory 
admits no act but immersion. And to assert 
that immersion is immersion, and that therefore 
baptism is immersion, is a method of argumentation 
so far above our capacity that we leave it with the 
quondam lawyer from whom it comes, to be ad¬ 
mired by those of his friends who may be able to 



BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONTINUED. 


235 


sound its mysterious depths. It far transcends 
all our science. We take his third and fifth argu¬ 
ments together, because, though introduced with 
imposing pomp, they both turn upon the mean¬ 
ing of two little Greek prepositions, eis and ekj 
as contained in one single passage of Scripture, 
lie tells us that eis means into, and ek, out of; 
that Philip and the eunuch “went down both 
(els') into the water” and came up ^\(ek) out 0 /the 
water;” that therefore the eunuch must have been 
immersed; and that therefore baptism must be 
immersion and nothing else. 

Now, if we were even to admit his premises, his 
conclusion would not follow. We have often gone 
into the water, and as often come out of the water, 
without having been immersed. Indeed, the eis 
and the ek apply here as well to Philip as to the 
eunuch; and, if eis and ek are sufficient to prove 
that the eunuch went under the water, they must 
prove that Philip also went under the water,—which 
would be a little more than agreeable either to Dr. 
Fuller’s theory or practice. 

But this argument of our Baptist friends also 
takes as its basis that eis and ek mean directly and 
only into and out of. This we dispute. Scapula 
gives ad as the first meaning of eis; ad means to, 
toward, at, close by. Bretschneider also gives ad as 
the first meaning of eis, and Stuart agrees with 
him. Buttman gives its leading signification to, 
unto. Sclirevelius gives its first meaning by ad. 
Homer constantly uses es, eis, eiso in the sense of 
being at, arriving at, going to. In telling the fate of 
the Greeks, he says they came (eis) to Troy, but 


236 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


never came into it, having been slain before it. 
And if eis always means into, then we must read, 
‘‘The men of Nineveh repented into the preaching 
of Jonas/^ not at the preaching; Jesus went through 
the cities and villages “journeying in Jerusalem,’^ 
not toward Jerusalem ; the healed demoniac of Ga- 
dara was sent into his friends, not to his friends; 
Mary went ^^into the grave to weep,’^ not unto the 
grave; the women, at the apparition of angels, 
“ bowed down their faces into the earth,’^ not to the 
earth; Mary “fell down into Jesus’ feet,” not at 
his feet; Jesus came into the grave of Lazarus, not 
the grave;” Mary Magdalene came into the 
sepulchre, not ^^unto the sepulchre;” Paul’s journey 
from Puteoli was into Eome, not toward Eome;” 
Abraham staggered not into the promises of God, 
not “he staggered not at the promises of God;” 
“Let us go into Jordan, and take thence every man a 
beam, and let us make us a place there where we 
may dwell,” not let us go unto Jordan. In the same 
way we would have to read in Isa. xxxvi. 2 that 
“the king sent Eabshakeh from Lachish into Je¬ 
rusalem,” although it was only to the fullers’ field 
outside of the walls; and that Christ directed Peter 
to go into the sea to throw his hook, not to the sea. 
But why multiply examples? The Campbellite- 
Baptist version of the Bible, in various places, 
translates eis — to, not into. Dr. Carson says, “I am 
far from denying that eis sometimes signifies unto. 
... It applies when the thing in motion enters 
within the object to which it refers. There are 
instances, however, in which the motion ends at 
the object.” (P 131.) And the Lewisburg Pro- 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONTINUED. 


237 


fessor, Mr. Curtis, says, ‘‘That it may mean at is 
not questioned, because all the prepositions are thus 
indefinite” (P. 154.) It is utterly futile, therefore, 
for Baptists to attempt to argue immersion from 
this word. 

But, though nothing can be made for immersion- 
ism out of eis, Dr. Fuller seems to think that ek 
settles the case. He says, with a verb of motion, 

always signifies Indeed! But we have learned 

ere this that this writer’s imperious announce¬ 
ments in connection with this subject are neither 
wonderful for accuracy nor final in authority. 
Let us to the Book. In John xiii. 4 it is said of 
Jesus, “He riseth up from supper” Does this mean 
out o/supper? In John xx. 1, Mary saw “the stone 
taken from the sepulchre.” Does this mean out of 
the sepulchre ? How can Dr. Fuller take out of a 
thing what never was in it ? See Matt, xxvii. 30, 
and Mark xv. 46. In Luke xii. 36 the Savior 
speaks of returning from the wedding. Did he 
mean out of the wedding ? The same ek is used in 
the Sphserics of Theodosius to signify the drawing 
of a line from a mathematical point, as ^firom the 
pole of a circle,” Will common sense tolerate the 
idea of getting into or coming out of a mathematical 
point ? The same word is used by Lycophron in 
the sentence where the artist is said to “form men 
from the extremity of the foot.” Is there any such 
thing as forming men out of the extremity of the 
foot? We also read of messengers sent ek—^^from 
the chief priests;” does it mean that they came out 
of the chief priests ? In Acts xii. 7 it is said of the 
imprisoned Peter, “His chains fell off from his 


238 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


hands.’^ Did they fall out of his hands? Dr. 
Carson answers yes:—“The chain must have been 
fastened somewhere within the part of the body 
WHICH the word hand DESIGNATES’’ !!! The cause 
of the immersionists is hard run. Dr. Carson is 
caught in Peter’s chain ! Behold him rage ! Ek 
must mean out of, even though it should make the 
shearing of sheep the cutting of their fleeces out 
of them! (Pp. 340, 342.) But it is useless. In all 
these instances ek is joined with verbs of motion, 
and yet it will receive only the sense of apo ,— 
FROM. Where, then, is Dr. Fuller’s assertion ? And 
how can ek, in the account of the baptism of the 
eunuch, prove that eis there means any thing more 
than unto, or that Philip and the eunuch did not 
merely come from the water, and not out o/it? 

Add now but two facts, and the necessity for 
rendering eis and ek unto and from in this account, 
or, at least, of so interpreting them as to exclude 
the idea of immersion, will distinctly appear. First, 
the passage which Philip expounded, the exposition 
of which led the eunuch to ask to be baptized, 
contains a Messianic prophecy which Jerome and 
others understood of baptism, and which Philip 
doubtless so interpreted at the time. Else how 
could the eunuch have been made to understand 
any thing about baptism ? And in that very pre¬ 
diction mode is indicated. “So shall he [the Mes¬ 
siah] SPRINKLE many nations” And would it not 
be unreasonably violent to suppose • that the 
preacher did contrary to the very text before 
him ? But, secondly, if any reliance is to be placed 
in the accounts of Eusebius and Jerome, sustained 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONTINUED. 239 

f.s they have been by modern researches and a 
general tradition that reaches back to the apostles^ 
times, there was not water enough there to im¬ 
merse the eunuch in. It was not a river or a pool, 
but a small spring in a desert region, the waters 
of which were swallowed up again by the very soil 
from which they proceeded. And to persist in 
arguing for immersion on the precarious ground 
of two indefinite little prepositions, where it is 
almost certain that no immersion could by any 
means have taken place, is to exalt the empire of 
zeal over reason, truth, and common sense. And, 
though Dr. Fuller may continue to denounce us as 
“ hopeless victims of hydrophobia,'' is it not better 
to be rationally hydrophobic than insanely aquatic? 

As Bloomfield is often quoted by our Baptist 
friends in favor of immersion, we here insert his 
note on the baptism of the eunuch. Speaking of 
Philip, he says, “ He baptized him, no doubt, with 
the use of the proper form; but whether by im¬ 
mersion or by sprinkling is not clear. Doddridge 
maintains the former, but Lardner (ap. Newc.) the 
latter view, and, I conceive, more rightly. On 
both having descended into the water, Philip seems 
to have taken up icater with his hands and poured it 
COPIOUSLY on the eunuch's head." 

And let it further be noted that this case of the 
baptism of the eunuch is the only instance in the 
whole New Testament, the only case out of the 
many thousands referred to in the Scriptures, 
in which eis and ek are used to express the ap¬ 
proach or withdrawal of the candidate to or from 
the water of baptism. It stands alone among 


240 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


myriads. And, though these are the strongest 
words ever used by the Holy Ghost in such con¬ 
nection, they fail to prove that the eunuch even so 
much as touched foot in the water when he was 
baptized; and much less that he was totally im¬ 
mersed. Some have thought that he was immersed; 
but there is nothing to j^rove it. We think the 
circumstances imply that he was not. He hardly 
would have stripped himself naked in the public 
road; nor is it probable that he would have under¬ 
taken to travel with his clothing dripping wet. It 
is not likely that Philip went contrary to the 
Scripture-text before him, or that he immersed him 
where the strong presumption is that there was 
not water enough to do it. And, having disposed 
of the case of the eunuch, we have forever disposed 
of eis and ek. 

Dr. Fuller’s next resort is to what he calls 
‘‘allusions to baptism. V Some of the passages 
quoted under this head we have already disposed 
of, and we deem it unimportant to dwell long on 
the rest. The first we notice is where Paul speaks 
of the Fathers as “ all baptized unto Moses in the 
cloud and in the sea.” We deny that there was 
any immersion in this case. Indeed, if baptism is 
immersion, then the Egyptians were baptized and 
not the Israelites, and the sacred record stands 
contradicted. The children of Israel passed through 
the sea “wpon dry ground” The}^ were neither 
dipped in the cloud nor plunged in the water. 
And if Paul had designed by this language to set 
forth the outward mode of administering Christian 
baptism, upon Dr. Fuller’s theory, he certainly 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONTINUED. 


241 


selected the wrong parties for his examples; for 
the hosts of Pharaoli really were immersed, which 
is not true of the followers of Moses. They walked 
on dry land. They were not dipped, unless one 
can be dipped on dry land. If they were wet at 
all, it was by rain or spray, not by being dipped in 
the sea. Moreover, Christian baptism demands 
an administrator; but there was none in the case 
referred to. Christian baptism requires the ele¬ 
ment to be brought in contact with the subject; 
but the Israelites were not touched by wave or 
cloud. And, so far as baptism consists of immersion^ 
we are forced to conclude that the passage of the 
Red Sea was no baptism. That passage was a 
figure of Christian baptism in its import,—in its 
moral, practical, and theological significance, and 
not in the mode of its performance. Augustine 
calls it a salvation by water, and for that reason it 
is called a baptism. It was a glorious deliverance 
of the ancient Israelites from the hands of their 
enemies, a solemn separation between them and 
their heathen associations, a mysterious conse¬ 
cration of God’s own chosen to his exclusive 
service, a miraculous regeneration, in which a new 
and holy nation was born, an impressive seal of 
God’s presence and covenant with his people. All 
these are things to pe said of the holy sacrament 
of Christian baptism now; and it is in these 
respects, and in these alone, that the passage 
through the Eed Sea is called a baptism. It no 
more proves that we must be immersed in order 
to be baptized than it proves that we must be 
sprinkled with mists of spray, such as doubtless 
2 


242 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


might have been seen falling into that wonderful 
pathway from the boisterous surges above. The 
Psalmist thus refers to the wonderful miracle:— 
“Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand 
of Moses and Aaron. . . . The waters saw thee, O 
God: the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the 
depths also were troubled: the clouds 'poured out 
water.” If there is any mode of baptism here, it is 
a sprinkling, or such pouring out of water as falls 
in drops. The Israelites were baptized, but not 
immersed; the Egyptians were immersed, but not 
baptized. How is this, if baptism is immersion ? 
But, says Mr. Carson, “Immersion does not neces¬ 
sarily imply wetting;’’ that, though the people 
were not wet, they were immersed; and that, 
though this immersion was “different” from Chris¬ 
tian baptism, it was yet “ similar” to it! The 
doctor seems to be still entangled in Peter’s chain. 
He had hard work of it. (P. 120.) 

Dr. Puller’s next reference is to 1 Peter iii. 20, 
21, where the apostle speaks of “the ark . . . 
wherein few—that is, eight souls—were saved by 
water, the figure according to which baptism doth 
now save us.” But where is the immersion in this 
case? JSToah and those saved with him were not 
immersed. By that flood the^^ were purified from 
the wicked, and consecrated as the new seed to re- 
populate the earth; but they rode above it, un¬ 
harmed by the shoreless waves which overwhelmed 
and drowned all else of human kind. They alone 
of all men were not immersed; and to make that 
gracious exemption a figure of immersion is figuring 
at a premium! The likeness which Peter finds in 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONTINUED. 


243 


the ark in which Noah was saved we interpret of 
the spiritual significance of baptism, of the purifi¬ 
cation of the soul by God’s Spirit, and its salvation 
from the judgments which shall overwhelm the 
wicked. But, as Dr. Fuller has introduced it as 
proof of mode, he is bound by the logical conse¬ 
quences of his own premises. And who does not 
see that, if the figure of which the apostle speaks 
refers to mode^ the case of Noah absolutely excludes 
immersion and establishes affusion as the only 
legitimate way? The rains fell upon the ark from 
above, but the waves never overflowed it from 
iDelow. 

Dr. Fuller refers us next to Bom. vi. 3, 5, and 
Col. ii. 12. In these words we have a sublime 
description of the wonderful efficacy of the gospel 
upon the inner being of believers, and of a con¬ 
dition of things resulting from their oneness with 
Christ which amounts to an actual reproduction 
of his crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection 
in the experiences of their hearts. But, sublime 
and spiritual as these Scriptures are, the attempt 
has been made to harness them down as the mere 
dray-horses to drag out of the mire a hopeless 
sectarian cause. Dr. Fuller so robs them of their 
literal force and meaning as to j^resent them as the 
offspring of a luxuriant poetic imagination em- 
plo^md upon remote resemblances of a point of 
external ceremony,—as the mere intellectual play 
of a fancy fond of tracing faint analogies and of 
amusing itself with alliterations. 

According to our estimate of the type of Paul’s 
mind and of the connection and import of these 


244 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


passages, they are the words of a man of God 
laboring to express some of the-profoundest mys¬ 
teries of the transforming power of the Savior’s 
grace. The baptism of which he speaks is neither 
the baptism of immersion or atfusion, or of any 
other mode of performing an external rite, but the 
inner and miraculous purification of man’s whole 
moral nature by incorporation with Jesus Christ. 
The crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection to 
which he alludes, so far from being mere images 
of immersion and emersion, are literal terms, 
denoting realities, and pointing not to a figu¬ 
rative but to an actual death of every believer to 
his sins and his real resurrection to newness of life. 
The cross here is not the cross of going under the 
water, but the inward crucifixion of the old man 
with the crucifixion of Christ. The parallel in the 
apostle’s mind is not between the outward mode 
of external baptism and the death, burial, and 
resurrection of the Savior, but between these par¬ 
ticulars of his passion and the inward spiritual 
experiences of those who truly are his. llis object 
is to show, not that Christians ought to walk in 
newness of life because figuratively raised from a 
watery grave in an outward ceremoii}^, but that 
justification by faith, so far from ministering to 
licentiousness, carries with it and effects in the 
soul an extinction of man’s licentious and sinful 
being, and sets up in its place a new and holy 
creature; that it actually transfers to the believer’s 
heart the whole history of the Savior’s passion, 
and continues it there as a thing now transpiring 
in the hidden experiences of every true disciple. 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONTINUED. 


245 


Dr. Fuller’s interpretation takes in about as much 
of the real sublimity of these passages as the stupid 
traveler at Rome took in of the grandeur of the 
Coliseum by examining a detached piece of mortar 
from its walls. 

Rut if we were even to admit the Baptist inter¬ 
pretation, and agree that Paul is here tracing a 
comparison between the mode of baptism and the 
crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, 
then the apostle comes before us in the absurd 
position of attempting to run an analogy between 
things in no way analogous. There is no mode 
of baptism of which we have ever heard which 
takes in, even in remotest resemblance, the various 
facts of this part of the Savior’s history. Take the 
most favorable particulars,—the burial and resur¬ 
rection. What resemblance is there between water 
—the softest and most yielding of visible substances 
—and a solid rock, the very image of durability? 
What likeness between dipping a man in a fluid 
and depositing a dead body in a horizontal exca¬ 
vation in the breast of a declivity? What simi¬ 
larity between the wading of a living man into a 
stream or cistern and the bearing of a corpse to its 
final resting-place ? What analogy between the 
hasty lifting up of a strangling subject from a 
plunge in the w^ater and the triumphant resur¬ 
rection of the reanimated Jesus in the strength of 
his own omnipotence? What similitude between 
the glorified body of the rising Savior and the 
drowned and dripping aspect of the Baptist sub¬ 
ject coming up from his immersion ? Could any 
thing be more unlike than Christ leaving his grave- 


246 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


clothes in his sepulchre of rock and coming forth 
unaided in his incorruptible body, and a man lifted 
hastily from the water, the same clothing sticking 
sadly to him and he looking a great deal worse 
than before his immersion ? Is it not amazing 
that any human mind could have imagined that 
such a sorry sight” bore any resemblance to the 
majestic and glorious resurrection of our blessed 
Lord? (See Dr. Webster’s Water-Baptism Ex¬ 
plained, pp. 19, 32.) No wonder that Dr. Fuller 
himself is so embarrassed with these discrepancies 
as to admit for once that “The manner is no¬ 
thing” ! (P. 74.) Had he made this admission 
from the start, and kept himself to it, he would 
have relieved his book of much false criticism 
and unsound reasoning, and spared himself the 
“pain” of pronouncing sentence of excommuni¬ 
cation upon millions of God’s own accepted sons 
and daughters. 

But, again: what the apostle in verses 3 and 4 
calls baptism into Christ, and into his death and 
burial, in verse 5 he calls planting in the likeness of 
Christ’s death. Bat what resemblance is there be¬ 
tween immersion and Christ’s death, or between 
immersion and planting in the likeness of Christ’s 
death ? Was he put to death by drowning? He was 
not thrust down in the water, but lifted up upon the 
cross. He did not die by being gently sunk into a 
yielding fluid, but by being violently nailed upon an 
unyielding stake. Neither is immersion in water a 
representation of the idea of planting. What simili¬ 
tude is there between the dripping, soiled, uncom¬ 
fortable-looking man, lifted by another from the 


BAPTIST ARGUMENTS CONTINUED. 


247 


troubled water, aud the beautiful young plant, 
painted by the rays and freshened by the showers 
of heaven, rising imperceptibly and noiselessly by 
the power of an inward life and vigor? If burial 
into Christ’s death by baptism, then, is the same as 
planting in the likeness of Christ’s death,—as the 
setting of the scion of the new spiritual man by 
the crucifixion of the old,—is it not clear as lan¬ 
guage can make it that the idea of immersion is 
entirely excluded ? 

Once more: the burial spoken of in these pass¬ 
ages is not a burial in baptism, '‘but a burial in 
Christ's death. Will language tolerate the idea of 
immersion in the death of another? Was Christ’s 
crucifixion a fluid ? There is purification in Christ’s 
death, and by that purification the old man with 
his vestment of vices is buried with Christ, never to 
be raised again. But immersion in Christ’s death, 
and that in the manner or “ likeness” of that death, 
— i.e. in a way resembling crucifixion,—is an asso¬ 
ciation of incoherencies that may be comprehen¬ 
sible to a Carolina lawyer, but surely not to 
common sense. 

Let us not be carried away, then, as too many 
have been, by the mere sound of a word. The 
burial of which the apostle speaks is not a mere 
figurative, but a literal and real, burial,—an actual 
extinction of the carnal mind, and an actual ab¬ 
straction and concealment of it in the deep abyss 
of eternal sepulture. There is not one of all these 
allusions that sustains the Baptist theory; no just 
laws of exegesis will permit them to be thus tied 
down to the signification of mere mode. They 


248 


THE BAETIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


prove that baptism is a sanctification, but they do 
not prove that it is immersion, or that immersion 
has any thing to do with it. 


CHAPTEK XYII. 

THE HISTORY OF BAPTISM. 

We come now to notice our author’s last argument. 
It is draw'll from what he calls the history of baptism. 
The substance of it is to this eifect: that from the 
time of John and Christ to the third century bap¬ 
tism was invariably administered by the total im¬ 
mersion of the candidate, and that the present mode 
of administering this ordinance is a superstitious 
contrivance of a degenerate and corrupt theology. 
Shades of our fathers! is this history? History is 
fact; but these assertions are not fact. By taking 
the exact reverse of them w'e will be much nearer 
to the truth. We deny that immersion was the 
common mode of baptism in the apostolic period 
of the Church. The most patient and laborious 
and impartial examination of every legitimate 
source of argument has left us without one par¬ 
ticle of proof that the apostolic baptisms w'ere 
immersions. We deny that John’s baptisms were 
immersions. We deny that the three thousand at 
Pentecost were immersed. We deny that Paul, 
Cornelius, Lydia, or the Jailer were immersed. 
We deny that there is any satisfactory^ evidence 



THE HISTORY OF BAPTISM. 


249 


that even the eunuch was baptized by immersion. 
We deny that there is a particle of evidence that 
the apostles ordinarily, if ever, baptized by total 
immersion. For though the inspired writers speak 
of baptism, directly or indirectly, on almost every 
page of the New Testament, and under a great 
variety of aspects, they have not employed a 
single term, or stated a single fact, or used 
a single figure of speech, which evinces that they 
either preferred or practiced submersion in any 
case; but, on the other hand, they have used lan¬ 
guage and related occurrences which can by no 
possibility be reconciled with immersion. Indeed 
Coleman most positively asserts that “the rite of 
immersion is an unauthorized assumption, in direct 
conflict with the teachings, the spirit, and the example 
of Christ and. his apostles.” (Ancient Christianity, 
p. 367.) 

“I will state,’^ says Dr. N. L. Eice, “an import¬ 
ant fact, which cannot be disproved,—viz.: No one 
can find any account of the practice of immersion 
before the third century; and then we find tr'ine 
immersion, accompanied with various superstitions 
and indecencies.’’ 

Dr. Fuller’s History,” then, stands contradicted 
in its most vital part. Its very life-blood is want¬ 
ing. For if the inspired apostles baptized in any 
manner without totally immersing the candidate, 
no subsequent practice, however general or tena¬ 
ciously contended for, can foist immersion upon us 
as an injunction of God or as a thing of binding 
obligation. 

Dr. Fuller quotes about thirty authorities to 


250 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


prove that immersion was generally practiced at 
an early period in the history of the Church. But 
we are free to admit, and, so far as we know, none 
of the writers on our side of this controversy have 
ever refused to admit, that baptizing by immer¬ 
sion was extensively prevalent during the third 
and the fourth centuries. Dr. Fuller’s authorities 
go no further than this admission. Not one of 
them says that immersion was specifically ap¬ 
pointed by the Lord, or that the Christians of the 
periods referred to ever regarded immersion as 
the only mode of baptism authorized by Christ 
’ and his apostles; and fourteen of these very authors, 
and in the very passages quoted, tell us expressly that 

THERE WERE ALWAYS EXCEPTIONS TO THE GENERAL 
PRACTICE, and, that there never was a time when 
persons were not otherwise baptized than by immersion. 
Not one of them speaks of immersion as essential 
to the validity of baptism, or says that those of 
the third and fourth centuries who ordinarily 
practiced immersion ever regarded it as indis¬ 
pensable to the integrity of this sacrament. And 
Dr. Pond (pp. 42-50) has proven, beyond the 
power of successful contradiction, that immersion 
was never considered as essential to baptism until 
the rise of Dr. Howell’s Baptist ^Fathers” —the 
Anabaptists of Germany—in the period imme- 
diatel}" following the Eeformation. 

Coleman, who has made so many concessions to 
Baptists, has justly said that the administration 
of baptism by immersion was the first departure 
from the teaching and example of the apostles on 
this subject; that it is not in harmony with the 


THE HISTORY OF BAPTISM. 


251 


Christian dispensation to give such importance to 
merely an outward rite; and that it is altogether 
a Jewish rather than a Christian idea, and indi¬ 
cates an origin and a spirit foreign to that of the 
ordinances of Christ and the apostles. (Ancient 
Christianity Exemplified, p. 367.) Neither is it 
difficult to account for this early departure from 
apostolic practice. Christianity began in the 
warm regions of the East, and in the midst of a 
people wdiose climate, habits, costume, and mode 
of life were all adapted to bathing; and nothing 
could have been more natural than the use of the 
bath as a mode of religious purifying on occasions 
otherwise convenient. This certainly w^as suffi¬ 
cient to begin the practice of immersion in bap¬ 
tism. This practice, once introduced, soon acquired 
strength from one of the primitive heathen signi¬ 
fications of the w^ord baptizo, and from false inter¬ 
pretations of Eom. vi. 3, 4, and Col. ii. 12. In 
addition to this, as Dr. Fuller himself remarks, 
“even in the days of the apostles we find corrup¬ 
tions insinuating themselves; and very soon after 
the time of the apostles all manner of innovations 
and abuses began to creep in.” (P. 91.) Pre-eminent 
among these abuses was that superstition from 
wffiich Papacy took its origin, the undue reverence 
for external forms. “In all ages, the spirit of will- 
worship, the universal concomitant of human 
nature, has busied itself in rendering more operose 
and cumbersome the simple rites of our holy faith. 
When Christ proposes to w^ash the feet, this spirit 
is sure to exclaim, ‘Lord, not my feet only, but 
also my hands and my head.'” And amid those 


252 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


deep-rooted tendencies to formalism and super¬ 
stition, what was there to avert from the Church 
a surrender of herself to what fanaticism and 
superstition would regard as the largest and most 
effectual mode of administering an ordinance in 
which so much was supposed to be involved both 
of emblematical import and of sanctifying power? 
(See Beecher on Baptism, sec. 23.) 

But, amid the prevailing departure from apos¬ 
tolic example which characterized the Church in 
the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, the validity 
of baptism performed by affusion or sprinkling 
alone was never denied by the Church. It was 
admitted to be true baptism. It matters not 
whether the instances of baptism by affusion were 
many or few. One acknowledged instance is as 
much and as really an admission of the fact as 
ten. As remarked by Professor Wilson, the ques¬ 
tion between us and our opponents in the appeal 
to the Fathers is. Do these venerable witnesses 
testify or not that there can be baptism where 
there is no immersion? If we can produce from 
their writings one unexceptionable instance of a 
rite acknowledged to be baptism, though admin¬ 
istered without immersion, judgment on the 
appeal must necessarily go in our favor. Let the 
Fathers, in a solitary case, call him on whom the 
symbolic water has been poured a baptized man, 
and they stand committed irrevocably and forever 
against the modern doctrine that ‘‘baptism is 
immersion and nothing else.'' Are there any evi¬ 
dences, then, that the Fathers baptized without 
immersion? There are. 


THE HISTORY OF BAPTISM. 


253 


Cyprian, who suffered martyrdom in a.d. 258, 
has left us a formal discussion upon the propriety 
of baptizing by affusion^ in which he argues that 
baptmns thus performed are valid, perfect, and 

JUST AS ACCEPTABLE TO GOD AS ANY OTHER. (See 
his sixty-ninth epistle.) 

St. Lawrence, the cotemporary of Cyprian, bap¬ 
tized Eomanus, a soldier, with a pitcher of watery 
and one Lucillus, hj pouring water on his head. 

At a period still earlier, Novatian, a converted 
heathen philosopher, was baptized by affusion. The 
writer quoted by Eusebius, from whom we have 
the account of the transaction, does not hesitate 
to call it baptism. (Eccles. Hist. vi. 43.) 

Constantine the Great was baptized by affusion 
in 337. Clodovius, King of the Franks, was bap¬ 
tized by affusion in 499. Argilufus, the King, and 
Theolinda, the Queen of the Longobards, were 
baptized by affusion in 591. Gennadius of Mar¬ 
seilles in 490 said that the baptized person is 
either sprinkled or immersed 

Hilary on 1 Tim. iii. 12, 13, as quoted by Hr. 
Beecher, says, ^^non desunt qui prope quotidie bapti- 
zentur cegri,”—there are riot wanting, almost daily, 
sick persons who are to be baptized. Sick persons 
were baptized without immersion. It was done 
mostly by affusion. Emperors were baptized in 
this way; and yet formal histories in the Greek 
tongue recorded it as baptism. Theodosius the 
Great was thus baptized by Ambrose in his last 
sickness. Basil sa 3 ^s that people were often bap¬ 
tized when they could neither speak, stand, nor 
confess their sins, and that it was done without 
22 


254 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


immersing them. Gregory of ^Nyssa speaks of 
the baptism of the sick without immersion, and 
calls it haptisma. ‘^Did the Greeks proclaim a 
falsehood in their own tongue? Did they declare 
before heaven and earth that a man was immersed, 
when every man, woman, and child knew that he 
was not? Yea, did they declare it when out of 
their own mouths they could be convicted of false¬ 
hood? for they themselves declare that he was 
not.’^ Yet they assert that he was baptized. (See 
Beecher on Baptism, sec. 57.) 

Tertullian, born 150, speaks of the ^‘aspersion of 
water” in connection with penitence and baptism, 
so as to leave us to infer that baptizing by 
atfusion was common in his day, and not other¬ 
wise esteemed than as a valid mode of administer¬ 
ing this ordinance. (De Penitent, cap. 6.) In the 
catacomb of Pontianus, out of the gate Portese at 
Pome, an ancient baptistery, which antiquarians 
upon clear and decisive grounds have dated back 
to the year 107, teaches the same doctrine. It is 
older than any copy of the Gospels now in exist¬ 
ence; but it speaks nothing of immersion. On the 
left is a niche, in the rocky side, where the adminis¬ 
trator stood, fronting a basin formed b}^ a slight 
excavation in the floor. On the farthest wall is a 
representation of the baptism of Christ, in which 
the water is being poured on his head. Such a 
picture, in such a place, could have been for no 
other purpose than to instruct the baptizers and 
their subjects that thus was the blessed Savior 
baptized, and that thus baptism was legitimately 
performed. 


THE HISTORY OF BAPTISM. 


255 


The primitive practice of administering baptism 
by affusion has thus been engraven upon the rocks 
forever. And Yenema, Salmasius, Eusebius, Baro- 
nius, Bingham, Neander, Winer, Gieseler, Cole¬ 
man, and all the best authorities tell us that in 
the case of sickness, or when water was not easily 
procured, or when the baptismal font was too 
small, or when other considerations of convenience 
or climate rendered immersion difficult or im¬ 
proper, the patristic Church always held affusion 
to be a valid mode of baptism, and regarded it as 
profanity and sin to rebaptize any who had re¬ 
ceived this ordinance in that manner. Cyprian 
says, “If any think that they have obtained no¬ 
thing, but are still empty and void, in that they 
have only been affused with sanctifying water, they 
must not be deceived, and so, if they escape the 
ills of their sickness and recover, be rebaptized;’’ as 
that would be to “ question the verity of faith and 
to deny baptism its proper majesty and sanctity.^’ 
Would to God that our Baptist friends were as 
•Ihoughtful and reverent toward God’s appoint¬ 
ment in this respect as Cyprian! It would do 
away wdth many a solemn farce and save un¬ 
suspecting people from profane sacrilege. It is 
true that it was held to be improper for such as 
first applied for baptism in the extremity of sick¬ 
ness afterward to be promoted to high official 
positions; but not because the ordinary mode of 
baptizing clinics was esteemed in any way im¬ 
perfect, as the Baptists insinuate. We have the 
express testimony of Cyprian and others that 
“ the sprinkling of water has like force with wash- 


256 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


ing and holds good,'' and that it neither abridges 
the ordinance itself nor curtails the spiritual bene¬ 
fits with wdiich it is associated. The only reason 
why those baptized in sickness were debarred from 
official honors is that assigned by Eufinus, Bing¬ 
ham, and others,—that the postponement of bap¬ 
tism to such an hour argued a great want of 
spiritual sensibility and showed an absence of 
that voluntaiy, cheerful, and unconstrained sur¬ 
render to Christ which ought to characterize high 
officers w the Church. This is fully set forth by 
the Council of Neocesarea, which said, “Ho that 
is baptized wffien he is sick ought not to be made 
a priest (for his coming to the faith is not volun¬ 
tary^, but constrained) unless his diligence and faith 
do prove commendable.’’ 

It is, therefore, a fact that the Fathers of 
the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, though very 
much given to administer baptism by immersion, 
really did in many instances, and continually, ad¬ 
minister this sacrament to certain classes without 
immersion and by simple affusion, and that it was 
uniformly and always held to be true and valid 
baptism, which it was a sin to think of repudiating 
or to treat as not Christian baptism. Does not 
this prove and demonstrate forever that the Bap¬ 
tists do but quote their own condemnation by 
appealing to patristic practice? Though they com¬ 
monly immersed, they found adequate Christian 
baptism where there was no immersion: there¬ 
fore, baptism with them was not sheer immersion 
and nothing else. 

And what is exceedingly remarkable in this 


THE HISTORY OP BAPTISM, 


257 


connection, though these ancient Christians gener- 
ally baptized by immersion, we know of no in¬ 
stance—and, with all the searching of our indus¬ 
trious Baptist writers, there has not come to light 
one single instance—in which any one of them 
attempted to sustain or defend their practice by 
reference to the meaning of the word or to the 
practice of the apostles. Upon this point we will 
give an extract from the learned Greville Ewing: 
—“ That, in the days when Churches in every 
nation were running the race of superstitious 
observance, and vying with one another who 
should be readiest to adopt every new clerical and 
monkish device, the Greeks speedily embraced the 
method of baptism by immersion, is matter of 
undoubted notoriety. But that they either'prac¬ 
ticed this method from the beginning, or, even 
when they embraced it, alleged as their reason 
the meaning of the word Baptism, there is no 
evidence which I have been able to discover. I 
have looked in vain for it into all the earliest 
Greek Fathers to which I have had access; and, 
so far as my acquaintance with the Baptist writers 
extends, I must say that they are on this point 
remarkably barren. Mr. Eobinson satisfies him¬ 
self with making the bare assertion without giving 
a single reference in support of it. Dr. Eyland, 
who has given so many quotations from Jewish 
and heathen writers, confines himself to three 
from the Greek Fathers. Two of these are 
brought to prove what we have admitted,—that 
haptizo signifies to sink and be drowned; but they 
have no reference to the ordinance of baptism. 


258 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


and they are so vaguely quoted that it is impossible 
to find the passages’’ (P. 141.) “ The idea of im¬ 

mersion in baptism seems to have arisen among 
the Latin (not Greek) Fathers of Africa; and that 
not from their opinion of the meaning of the 
original words, of the institution, but from their 
unwarrantable zeal for improving on the simplicity 
of that and of all the other institutions of Christi- 
anity.’" (P. 84.) 

It is also worthy of remark that there arose a 
sect in the fourth century, called the Eunomians, 
which embraced men as distinguished for learning 
and penetration as any who lived in that period, 
who denounced the custom of immersing candi¬ 
dates for baptism as an unwarrantable departure 
from the primitive mode of administering this 
ordinance, and insisted that baptism was only 
rightly performed by wetting the head and 
shoulders. 

Nor is it to be forgotten that when the early 
Christians immersed their subjects they immersed 
them in perfect nakedness. Whether male or 
female, old or young, immersion was never per¬ 
formed unless the eandidate had first been divested 
of every particle of clothing. This is a fact, 
established upon the very best authority and 
admitted by Baptists themselves. It cannot be 
successfully denied. And immersion for Christian 
baptism has no records in history which are not 
inseparably connected with the custom of bringing 
people to baptism as naked as they came into the 
world. This one fact, with its indecency, ought 
to be proof enough that immersion did not origin- 


THE HISTORY OF BAPTISM. 


259 


ate in the purity of scriptural ordinances, but in 
the rudeness of growing superstition. It arose at 
a time when a barbarous but ambitious clergy 
presumed to enjoin submission to whatever their 
wild imaginations might suggest for introduction. 
The fact is that 'this indecent undressing for bap¬ 
tism had a foundation about as respectable, as 
well as an antiquity as great, as the custom of 
immersion itself. If immersion in water could set 
forth the death and burial and resurrection of 
Christ, the unclothing of the person baptized did 
much better set forth the putting off of the body 
of sin in order to put on the new man, which 
is created in righteousness and true holiness. So 
that, if the common practice of the Fathers is of 
any value in proving what is essential to baptism, 
it proves equally that this total divesture is just 
as essential as the total imr^ersion. 

We here also mention the fact that there is a 
Christian society now in existence which dates back 
to the remotest Christian antiquity, and so far re¬ 
moved from the common world as to have felt little 
of the conflicts of opinion or of the operations of 
ambition, which have made such sad havoc with 
larger communities and interests,—to a community 
of whom it is not too much to say that they have 
retained the practicfes derived from their forefathers 
much more punctiliously than the perturbed nations 
of Christendom at large. We refer to the Syrian 
Christians in India. Cosmos Indicopleustes found 
them there in a.d. 540, a certain Theophilus in 356, 
and mention is made of one of their bishops as 
early as 180. Good authority says that they were 


260 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


first converted by the personal labors of some of 
the apostles in the very region they still inhabit. 
Mr. Newell; an American missionary, visited them 
in 1814. He says, made particular inquiry 
respecting the mode of baptism. I found it was 
AFFUSION. Eespecting the subjects of baptism I 
made no inquiry, as I supposed it was a matter 
of notoriety that the Syrians are Fedobaptists. 
Bro. Hall, who conversed with those same priests 
when he was at Cochin, understood that children 
were baptized.’^ 

The History of Baptism’^ furnishes no support 
for the cause of immersionist philology. 


CHAPJEE XYIII. 

THE PRACTICE OF THE GREEK CHURCH. 

Our Baptist friends are very fond of referring to 
the practice of the so-called Greek Church upon 
this subject. They also manage to present the 
case so as to take advantage of the ignorance of 
many people and persuade them that such an 
appeal is a complete and unanswerable settlement 
of the whole controversy. 

Mr. Eobinson, in his History of Baptism, chap¬ 
ter second; thus presents the matter:—‘‘The word 
is confessedly Greek; and native Greeks must 
understand their own language better than foreign¬ 
ers; and they have always understood the word 



^ THE PRACTICE OE THE GREEK CHURCH. 261 

baptism to signify dipping; and, therefore, from 
their first embracing Christianity to this day, they 
have always baptized, and do yet baptize, by im¬ 
mersion. This is an authority for the meaning of 
the word baptize infinitely preferable to that of 
European lexicographers; so that a man who is 
obliged to trust human testimony, and baptizes by 
immersion because the Greeks do, understands a 
Greek word exactly as the Greeks themselves 
understand it: and in this case the Greeks are 
unexceptionable guides.’’ 

All this appears exceedingly plausible. Mr. 
Ewing says he has no doubt it has caused the 
immersion of thousands. iNay, if it were true, it 
would put other nations in the ridiculous attitude 
of undertaking to dispute with the Greeks the 
meaning of their own language. We shall show 
presently that the whole thing is apocryphal. 

Dr. Fuller presents the case in these words:— 

In inquiring into the import of a Greek word, 
the following questions must at once suggest them¬ 
selves to the mind of every man:—Is the Greek 
language now spoken by any nation? If it be, 
why not refer the point to them, since they must 
know wTiat is the meaning of the word? Now, 
the Greek language is still essentially a living 
language. The w^ord baptizo is still used by the 
Greeks, and they mock to utter scorn the absurdity 
of supposing that it means sprinkle or pour. They 
employ terms of contempt for those practices, and 
always immerse any members who join their 
Churches from other Churches where they have 


262 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


only received sprinkling or pouring. This point 
is conceded by all.’^ (Pp. 87, 88.) 

To the illiterate and unsuspecting, this too would 
seem like a just and final disposition of the whole 
controversy. Many, no doubt, think that it is 
quite enough to settle any one’s mind in favor of 
immersionism. But ^‘thereby hangs a tale,” which 
remains to be told, and the Baptist logic on this 
point vanishes forever. It is mere sophistry. 

1. Modern Greek is not the ancient Greek,— 
very little, if anjq more than Italian is like ancient 
Latin. This is a fact which no scholar will deny. 

2. The great body of the so-called Greek Church 
does not speak Greek at ally and never has spoken 
Greek, and is in no way connected with Greek 
ANCESTRY. The head and trunk of the so-called 
Greek Church is the Russian Emjiire; and out of 
a population of sixty-seven millions composing that 
empire, not four millions are of Greek extraction ; 
and not the one-tenth of those know any thing about 
Greek! 

3. It is not the fact that the Greek Christians 
have ‘‘always understood the word baptism to 
signify dipping.” Clemens Alexandrinus was a 
Greek Christian; and he applies the word to denote 
purifyings by wetting the body, by washing the 
hands, and bj^ sprinkling around and over one on 
a couch. Cyril was a Greek Christian; yet he calls 
the purification by the sprinkling of the ashes of 
the heifer under the Jewish law a baptism. Origen 
was a Greek Christian; and he calls the shedding 
of Christ’s blood a baptism, and says that martyr¬ 
dom is rightfully called a baptism, and that the 


THE PRACTICE OF THE GREEK CHURCH. 


263 


pouring of the water on the wood and altar in 
Elijah’s time was a baptizing of it. Nicephorus 
wms a Greek Christian; and he tells of a man who 
received the ordinance of induction into Christ by 
affusion, while lying upon his bed, and calls the 
transaction baptism. Athanasius was a Greek 
Christian; and he says that ‘‘John was baptized by 
placing his hand on the divine head of his Master.” 
Zonarus and Balzamon were Greek Christians; and 
yet the occurrence of baptizo, in the sense of im¬ 
mersion, in a canon of the Apostolic Constitutions, 
as they are called, so arrested their attention that 
the}^ thought it necessary to insert notes to pre¬ 
vent the reader from mistaking its meaning in that 
place. 

Besides these cases, the native Greek lexicog¬ 
raphers, setting themselves to explain the meaning 
of Greek for the Greeks, and acknowledged and re¬ 
ceived by the Greeks as competent interpreters of 
their native tongue, have not given dip or immerse 
as the meaning of baptizo. Hesychius gives the 
stem-word, and defines it and all proceeding from 
it by the one word antleo,—to draw, -pump, or pour 
water. Suidas defines baptizo by the one word 
plum,—to wet, wash, cleanse, or bathe in any manner. 
And Gases defines it by brecho, louo, antleo,—to wet, 
wash, draw, or pour out water. 

To say, then, that the Greek Church has “always 
understood the word baptism to signify dipping,” 
is a mistake, a sheer assumption, a positive contra¬ 
diction of the truth. It is not so. 

4. The Greek Church adheres most tenaciously 
to the baptism of infants, so much so that an adult 


264 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


baptism is a rare thing among them. And, if their 
practice is authority to fix the mode^ it is equal 
authority to fix the subject^ of baptism. It is just 
as uniform and decisive in the one point as in the 
other. Either, then, our Baptist friends must 
repudiate the authority of the Greek Church prac¬ 
tice altogether, or criminate themselves with de¬ 
linquency in some important parts of the baptismal 
service, and of stinting and abrogating God’s ordi¬ 
nance as applied to children. This is an extremity 
to which they reduce themselves by this mode of 
argument; and truth and justice require that they 
be sternly held to it. 

5. Dr. Fuller says that the Greek Churches 
always rebaptize any members who join them 
from other Churches where they have received 
sprinkling or pouring. Why did he not have the 
manliness to state the true reason? Would they 
admit Dr. Fuller, or any other Baptist, without 
rebaptism? He does not say they would; and wo 
say, positively, they would not. Why? Simply 
because they acknowledge no Churches but their 
own, whether the}^ be immersionist Churches or 
not. The Greek Churches are episcopal, and admit 
no succession, no authorized ministiy, but their 
own. They hold the whole Western Church as 
apostate. They will allow no Christianity but 
theirs. Hence, whoever comes to join them must 
be baptized by their clergy and in their own forms, 
no matter how or by whom he had been baptized 
before. Dr. Fuller’s immersions are no better in 
their eyes than the sprinklings of the Papists. 
They hold them all equally invalid. So that if 


THE PRACTICE OF THE GREEK CHURCH. 265 

Greek Church practice is to decide the matter, 
there is no true baptism under heaven but that 
performed by themselves. Our Baptist brethren 
must go to St. Petersburg for the genuine succes¬ 
sion before they are competent to administer bap¬ 
tism as understood by these so-called Greeks. 

6. The mode of baptism in the Greek Churches is 
not by total immersion. Baptists have with great 
confidence asserted that it is; but, like many of 
their assertions, it is without proof. It is only 
upon loose, vague, and unsupported impressions 
that their allegation rests. We will furnish testi¬ 
mony which proves those impressions to be un¬ 
founded. ^‘Mere assertion is a proof only for 
fools,^^ says a certain writer: proof is what wo 
want, especially “in a matter of such moment as 
obedience to Jesus Christ.^' 

Mr. Joseph Huber, a ruling elder in the Danville 
Presbyterian Church, and afterward a minister of 
the Presbyterian Church, some forty years ago 
resided among people of the Greek Church, and 
furnishes the following statement:— 

“ I resided upwards of three years in the capital 
of the Grand Seignior’s dominions, in a Greek family 
of the first respectability. During that time I was 
present at four baptisms ,—two in the family and two 
in the immediate neighborhood. It is the custom 
among the Greeks either to have their children 
baptized publicly in their churches, or else in their 
houses; in w'hich latter case the parents invite the 
nearest relations and neighbors; and, after the 
ceremony, while refreshments pass round, the 
father gives to each person present a token of wit- 
23 


266 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED- 


iiesship, consisting of a small piece of Turkish 
money through which a hole is j)ierced and a piece 
of narrow ribbon inserted. I was thus invited to 
attend the four above-mentioned baptisms: and I 
still have in my possession two tokens; the other 
two may be seen in Mrs. McDowell’s Museum in 
Danville. The company were all seated on the 
sofas around the room. A table stood in the middle 
with a basin of water on it. The papa or priest was 
then sent for, who upon entering the room was 
received by the father of the infant and led to the 
baptismal water, which he consecrated by a short 
prayer and the sign of the cross; then the mother 
presented to him her babe, which he laid on his left 
arm, and, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, he thrice dipped ms hand into the water and 

DROPPED SOME OF IT ON THE CHILD^S FOREHEAD, 

giving it a name. 

“ I may remark here,” he adds, that I never 
heard, during my stay in Constantinople, of adult 
baptisms, nor of the ordinance being performed by 
immersion in a single instance. Most generally 
infants are baptized in the churches. Before the 
altar stands a tripod holding a basin of consecrated 
water for baptisms.’' 

Here were native Creeks, members of the Greek 
Church, “ holding to the good old practice of the 
ancient Church;” yet they baptized infants, and 
they did it by dropping water upon the subject. 
“Can it be affirmed,” says the Baptist Eecorder, 
“ that the Greeks did not understand their own 
language?” But this is not all. 

The Eev. Pliny Fisk, missionary to Palestine 


THE PRACTICE OP THE GREEK CHURCH. 267 

some years ago, says, I went one morning to the 
Syrian church to witness a baptism. . . . When 
ready for the baptism, the font was uncovered, and 
a small quantity, first of warm water and then of 
cold, was poured into it. The child, in a state of 
perfect nudity, was then taken by the bishop, who 
held it in one hand, while with the other he an¬ 
ointed the whole bod}^ with oil. He then held the 
child in the font, its feet and legs being in the water, 
and WITH HIS right hand he took up. water and 
POURED it on THE CHILD, in the name of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.^' (Memoir of Fisk, 
p. 357.) 

These baptisms occurred in the East, where the 
climate is favorable to immersion. We can hardly 
suppose that there is more to do with the water 
when we come north and west to St. Petersburg. 
Nay, Hr. B. Kurtz, in his first tour through Europe 
in 1825, says, “ We ourselves once witnessed the bap¬ 
tism of an infant in the great cathedral of St. Peters¬ 
burg, BY POURING.^’ And so Heylingius, as quoted 
in Booth’s “Pedobaptism Examined,” says, ‘‘ The 
Greeks at this day practice a kind of affusion.” 

Some indeed tell us that the Greek Church 
totally immerses the candidate before the ceremony 
of affusing or sprinkling him; but we have seen no 
accounts of this from eye-witnesses. W'e seriously 
doubt it. If it is so, the fact might easilj^ be ascer¬ 
tained and the evidence of it produced. It has not 
been forthcoming. The inference is that it does 
not exist. And, if it does exist, it is no baptism in 
the estimation of the Greek Church without being 
followed by the public application of water to the 


268 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


subject with the hand, in the name of the Holy 
Trinity. Affusion cannot be separated from 
Greek Church baptism. 

We then hold our Baptist friends down to their 
own argument,—that the practice of the Greeks 
shows their understanding of the Greek word. 
The practice of the Greeks at least includes affusion 
or sprinkling: therefore the Greeks understood bap- 
Tizo to include affusion and sprinkling. 

So much for the practice of the so-called Greek 
Church. 


CHAPTEE XIX. 

DEVELOPMENTS AND TENDENCIES OF THE BAPTIST 
DOGMA. 

We have now examined every point in Dr. 
Fuller’s “philological inquiry as to the meaning 
of haptizo.” The result is before the reader. We 
do not deem it more than the naked truth to say 
that we have found him contradicting plain facts, 
interpolating historical records, giving for Scrip¬ 
ture what is not in Scripture, perverting authori¬ 
ties, wresting inspired language from its obvious 
import, charging the best and wisest men who have 
ever lived with a spurious Christianity, seeking to 
bind down the glorious blessings of Christ’s medi¬ 
ation to a mere accident of external ceremony, 
sending us back to the old heathen to learn 
whether we are Christians or not, at every step 



DEVELOPMENTS OP THE BAPTIST DOGMA. 269 

using logic which is unsound and making assertions 
which are untenable, denouncing the most solemn 
sacraments of ninety-five hundredths of God’s 
people for more than a thousand years as super¬ 
stition or profanity, and holding up a hetero¬ 
geneous community of modern sectarians as the 
only true Church of God on earth. A cause which 
drives its advocate to such extremities can never 
command the respect of candid thinkers. 

In six general arguments we have shown that 
all the presumptions and primd facie considerations 
in the case lie so strong and heavy against the 
Baptist theory of immersion that nothing short 
of demonstrative proof is competent to set them 
aside. Such proof has not been found in the Bap¬ 
tist Argument.” Indeed, Dr. Carson himself 
comes to what is equivalent to an admission that 
no such proof is to be found inside of the New 
Testament. His process is, first, to establish im¬ 
mersion as the meaning of haptizo from classic 
Greek authors, and then to silence all objections 
and counter-arguments drawn from the Scriptures 
by alleging the possibility—the mere possibility — 
that the baptisms of the New Testament may have 
BEEN immersions. This is all that he pretends to 
get from the New Testament on the subject. 
Positive proof he does not once claim to find in the 
inspired record. (See his work on Baptism, pp. 
281, 282.) Either, then, the Scriptures are not 
that sufficient guide which Paul (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17) 
claims that they are, or the doctrine of immersion- 
ists is not a doctrine of the New Testament. Many 
may honestly entertain it and take it for the truth 


270 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


of God; but it is nevertheless wholly unsuiiported 
by the origin or use of the word relied on, at war 
with the strongest scriptural intimations concern¬ 
ing mode in baptizing, and incongruous with the 
whole tone and spirit of the gospel. It is no part 
of Christianity. . 

Nay, the nature and tendencies of the immersion- 
ist dogma, when fully seen, present it in a light 
which prove it to be of other than divine origin. 
The spirit of Christ, of liberty, of charity, of good¬ 
ness, is not in it. It has its life and power in what 
is as unchristian as it is Pharisaic, superstitious, 
and sectarian. 

It excludes the repenting sick from the privilege 
of confessing Christ in his own appointed mark of 
discipleship and sacrament of forgiveness. 

It does the same in the case of those members 
of our race whom the gospel may reach in ’ arid 
deserts where it is difficult to find water enough 
to sustain life, or in those polar realms where 
unmitigated winter reigns for nearly all the year, 
locking up every stream in perpetual ice, covering 
the surface of the deep with solidity, and rendering 
the immersion of a man in water the instantaneous 
conversion of him into a statue of frozen flesh and 
blood. God or his apostles would never have 
instituted or made binding any particular mode 
which could not be universally and at all times 
practised. 

It destroys the solemnity and disturbs the de¬ 
votion which ought to attend the administration 
of the baptismal sacrament, often converting an 
ordinance of God into a mere show for the amuse- 


DEVELOPMENTS OF THE BAPTIST DOGMA. 271 

ment of curious people, boys, and servants, giving 
point to the jests of the vulgar and bringing pain 
to the feelings of the devout. Dr. Fuller, with all 
his studied sanctity of manner, the elegances of 
music, the assistance of waiting friends, the con¬ 
cealment of the rising subject’s face, the consider¬ 
ate interposition of his own robed person to cover 
the sorry retreat of his candidates from the pool, 
and all the shields and graces which his ingenuity 
can throw around it, cannot deprive immersion of 
its liability to the charge which we are compelled, 
from personal observation, to make upon it. 

It also subverts the order of the gospel, exalting 
the ritual above what is personal, placing the form 
above the substance, making s])iritual qualifications 
nothing unless accompanied by submission to a 
mere puncto of external ceremony, and engrafting 
Levitical bondage upon evangelical freedom. It 
leads to the denunciation of the most solemn 
official acts of the greatest and most pious minis¬ 
ters that have ever lived as profanity and lies not 
to be respected for a moment. It obscures the 
vital doctrines of the Christian faith, by displacing 
and supplanting them in the pulpit and in the 
common mind by mere questions of outward 
formalities, which can profit nothing. It begets a 
superstitious regard for the rite of baptism itself, 
as though salvation were to be obtained in the 
water. It was so in the fourth and fifth eenturies. 
It is so now in the case of the Campbellites and in 
the cases of very many individual Baptists. Dr. 
Fuller himself has not escaped this tendency of his 
system. Saved or damned!” are the first words 


272 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


in his book; and if salvation and damnation are 
not associated in his mind with submission and 
refusal to go under the water, or if he does not 
in some way regard this momentous question as 
involved in immersion, it is contemptible hypo¬ 
crisy, if not downright profanity, to introduce an 
argument on immersion with such words, amplified, 
too, as if this were the question to be decided. 
Meet a zealous Baptist where you will, and im¬ 
mersion is obtruded upon you as a theme para¬ 
mount to all others. Mearly every Baptist preacher 
who has learned to decline Ho, and many a Bap¬ 
tist preacher who knows not what Ho is, must 
needs write a book, tract, or something else on 
immersion, just as though that embodied the 
essence of Christianitj’’, or as if it were the ulti¬ 
matum of ministerial effort to hold up above every 
thing else this one matter of simple/orm. Stoutly 
as it may be denied, 

Ho, every mother’s son and daughter! 

Here’s salvation in the water!” 

are lines which express w’hat may be seen in the 
spirit of Baptist literature, preaching, and conver¬ 
sation,—the fruit of a deep-seated tendency in 
their system to divert the mind from the vital 
elements of saving religion to a superstitious and 
fanatical regard for an insignificant mode of per¬ 
forming an outward ceremony. 

Out of thirteen of the publications of the ^^South- 
ern Baptist Publication Society,’' including hymn- 
books and rhymes and conversations for children, 
four are on the subject of baptism. The editor of 
the Baptist paper of Baltimore concedes that out 


DEVELOPMENTS OF THE BAPTIST DOGMA. 273 

of one hundred and seventy volumes, including 
Sabbath-school books and biographies, published 
by the ‘^American Baptist Publication Society,” 
nineteen are strictly on ‘‘ the baptismal question,” 
and that, out of two hundred and seven Tracts^ 
twenty are exclusively ^^denominational”! 

Professor Eaton, in a speech before the Baptist 
American and Foreign Bible Society, April 28, 
1840, says, Never, sir, was there a chord struck 
that vibrated simultaneously through so many 
Baptist hearts from one extremity of the land to 
the other, as when it was announced that the 
heathen world must look to them alone for an unvailed 
view of the glories of the Gospel of Christ. ... A 
deep conviction seized the minds of almost the 
whole body., that they were divinely and peculiarly 
SET for the defence and dissemination of the gospel as 
delivered to man by its heavenly Author.” 

It is the foster-mother of a spirit of proselytisni 
and sectarianism, which is ever on the look-out for a 
convert to its party, creeping insidiously into houses, 
and ‘heading captive silly women” of both sexes, 
and which would glory in draining every church 
and destroying every congregation in Christendom 
which refuses to bow to its narrow dictation. 

It has led to the public and formal denunciation 
of the great Bible societies of Britain and America 
—those two wings of the Apocalyptic angel with 
the everlasting gospel to preach to every kindred, 
people, and tongue—as ^‘combinations to obscure the 
divine revelation.” 

It has led its adherents and supporters to arro¬ 
gate to themselves the high distinction of being, 


274 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


of all Christian people, the only ones sufficiently 
honest and conscientious to translate intelligibly 
those passages of Scripture which relate to the 
baptismal sacrament. Witness the resolution of 
the Baptist American and Foreign Bible Society, 
passed on the 28th of April, 1840, which reads, 
‘^Eesolved, That in the fact [!] that the nations of 
the earth must now look to the Baptist denomination 
ALONE for faithful translations of the word of Godj 
a responsibility is imposed upon them, demanding 
for its full discharge an unwonted degree of union, 
of devotion, and of strenuous, persevering effort 
throughout the entire body.” Might not the 
spirit which dictated and sustained that resolve 
take, for the motto of its devotions, ^‘God, I thank 
thee that I am not as other men”? 

It leads to the intolerant proscription of all, 
however devout of heart and meek in spirit and 
munificent in charity, who do not embrace it. 

It has engendered in its devotees a bigotry, in¬ 
tolerance, and self-sufficiency which Eobert Hall, 
though a Baptist, saw, lamented, and sought to 
counteract, as being the same in essence and 
equally reprehensible with the most arrogant and 
anti Christian assumptions of the Papacy itself. 

It has led, according to the testimony of that 
eloquent man of God, to ‘^glaring instances of 
gross violation as well of the dictates of inspiration 
as of the maxims of Christian antiquity,—both of 
which,” says he, concur in inculcating the doc¬ 
trine of the absolute unity of the Church, and of 
the horrible incongruity —I might almost say im¬ 
piety—of attempting to establish a system which 


DEVELOPMENTS OF THE BAPTIST DOGMA. 275 

represents a great majority of its members as 
personally disqualified for communion,’^ 

It falsifies the words of Jesus that the gates of 
hell should not prevail against his Church, by 
assuming grounds which necessarily render that 
Church extinct for hundreds of years, and which, 
if true, make it extremely doubtful whether there 
is now anywhere under the whole heaven any 
such thing as a true, legitimate, historical Chris¬ 
tian Church. 

Can such a theory, with such tendencies, plead 
scriptural warrant? Can the immaculate Son of 
God be the author of such a sj’^stem? Can Heaven 
be the origin of such doctrine? Can Jehovah be 
the parent of such confusion? To say so would 
be to slander the great God, to obscure the attri¬ 
butes of his love and mercy, to throw discredit 
upon his word, to cast contempt upon his gospel, 
and to divide his kingdom against itself. We 
cannot believe it. It is too much for the most 
fanatical credulity. It is an outrage upon com¬ 
mon sense. It is Papal arrogance in the guise of 
Protestant humility. We pity the people who 
have suffered themselves to be imposed on and 
infatuated by it. We honor and sympathize with 
them as Christians, so far as they show a Chris¬ 
tian temper and walk. Many of them are doubt¬ 
less good men and true and accepted of God; but 
they are giving their sanction to a system the 
bearings of which are as contrary to the spirit of 
the gospel and as antagonistic to some of its 
clearest dictates as error is to truth or sin to holi- 
ness; a system which leads them to call a man a 


276 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


minister of Jesus whilst they denounce all his 
administrations as invalid and sinful and seek to 
alienate the people from him as a deceiver and 
apostate; a system which leads them to flatter a 
man as a Christian friend with one breath and 
with the next deny to him the hope of salvation 
save as they extend it to the unbaptized heathen; 
a system which leads them at times to take a 
man by the hand as a fellow-disciple of Jesus, and 
then to turn Mm away from the Lord’s table like 
a dog. 

And this, we are to be told, is Christianity par 
excellence ,—the religion of Christ direct from his 
word and Spirit,—the pure, unadulterated gospel 
of the blessed God,—the very flower and perfec¬ 
tion of that economy of holiness, love, liberty, and 
universal brotherhood of which the holy seers of 
old did sing, and for which the heart of humanity 
in all ages has been yearning, hoping, and pray¬ 
ing ! Oh, tell it not in Gath, publish it not in 
the streets of Askelon; lest the Philistines rejoice 
and the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph V* 

As we shall all answer at the great day of 
judgment, Can such a system be the truth 
OF God? 


ANALOGY—AN INDEPENDENT ARGUMENT. 277 


CHAPTEE XX. 

ANALOGY—AN INDEPENDENT ARGUMENT. 

Before closing our remarks upon this part of 
the Baptist controversy, we have another argu¬ 
ment to present,—an argument from analogy,— 
an argument quite independent of the preceding 
discussion, and so direct, complete and conclusive 
that no Baptist writer, so far as we are aware, has 
ever so much as attempted to answer it. 

We think that we have* demonstrated that no 
reliance is to be placed upon the doctrine of our 
Baptist friends that ^^haptizo means immerse and 
nothing else.^^ But we are now about to submit 
a mode of reasoning which has no need of that 
demonstration, which exempts us entirely from 
the necessity of replying at all to the teachings 
of immersionists as to the secular, classical, and 
common meaning of the word in dispute. We 
may grant that the Greeks ordinarily used haptizo 
to signify immersion, and that all its meanings are 
properly resolvable into this. We may dispense 
with entirely and wholly set aside the conclusions 
which we have thus far educed; and yet there is 
a mode of reasoning, to which no just exception 
can possibly be taken, which entirely confounds 
the Baptist claim, and establishes a bulwark of 
24 


278 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


strength around our mode of baptism which ren¬ 
ders it forever invulnerable against all the immer- 
sionist logic in the world. 

It is agreed on all hands that, under the pres¬ 
ent dispensation, Christ has established two corre¬ 
sponding ordinances or sacraments: the one is 
Baptism the other The Lord's Supper, —the one 
referring to the new birth, the other to the nur¬ 
ture and nourishment of this new creature. All 
the essentials of a positive ordinance or Christian 
sacrament appertain alike to both. Both have 
Christ’s positive command; both require the use 
of an external, material, and tangible element; 
both are of binding and continual obligation; both 
have the divine promise of grace to those who 
attend properly upon them; both are meant to 
exhibit and apply the gospel to the souls of men; 
and both are equally solemn, sacred, and unalter¬ 
able. The one is denoted by the word deipnon, 
supper; the other by the word baptisma, baptism. 
Baptisma does not more describe the nature or 
essential constituents of the one than deipnon de¬ 
scribes the other. It is no more allowable, then, 
for us to depart from the strict meaning of deipnon 
in our celebration of the Holy Supper than to 
depart from the strict meaning of baptisma in 
baptizing. The stringency or laxity that is requi¬ 
site or allowable must be the same in both cases; 
for they are exactly analogous. If it is not neces¬ 
sary to keep to the literal meaning of the one, it 
is not necessary to keep to the literal meaning of 
the other. Liberty in the one case presupposes 
and implies the existence of the right to exercise 


ANALOGY—AN INDEPENDENT ARGUMENT. 279 

the same liberty in the other case. This cannot 
be successftilly disputed. 

Supposing, then, that the immersionists are 
right in claiming that mode is implied in baptism, 
if we can show that they, iii common with the 
Churches generally, from the beginning until now, 
consider themselves under no obligation to keep 
to the plain, literal import of the word deipnon in 
the Holy Supper, that fact alone, without any 
other argument, is a satisfactory and unanswer¬ 
able ground upon which to claim exemption from 
rigid adherence to the literal meaning of baptisma 
in baptizing. Sound authority in one case is 
sound authority in every parallel case. 

What, then, is the meaning of deipnonf There 
is but little room for diversity as to the true 
answer. It denotes a full meal, and that an 
evening meal. All authorities agree that it stands 
for the principal meal of the Greeks and Eomans. 
Three names of meals occur in the Homeric writ¬ 
ings, in the following order,— ariston, deipnon, and 
dorpon. The Greeks of a later age usually par¬ 
took of three meals, called akratisma, ariston, and 
deipnon. The last, which corresponds to the dor¬ 
pon of the Homeric poems, was the evening meal, or 
dinner; the ariston was the luncheon; and the 
akratisma, which answers to the ariston of Homer, 
was the early meal, or breakfast. The akratisma 
was taken immediately after rising in the morn¬ 
ing. Next followed i\\Q ariston, or luncheon; but 
the time at which it was taken is uncertain. 
Suidas says that it was taken about the third 
hour; that is, about nine o’clock in the morning; 


280 


THE BAPTIST SYSTE3I EXAMINED. 


but this account does not agree with the state¬ 
ments of other ancient writers. We may con¬ 
clude, from many circumstances, that this meal 
was taken about the middle of the day, and an¬ 
swered to the Eoman prandium. The principal 

MEAL, HOWEVER, WAS THE DEIPNON. It WaS USUOlly 

taken rather late in the day,—-frequently not before sun¬ 
sets (Smith’s Antiquities, pp, 303, 304.) Dr. Halley 
says, Long before the apostolic age, deipnon had 
become regularly and constantly the evening meal.’^ 
Hitzch says that it denoted ^Hhe principal meal/' 
Trench does the same. Hence, all great enter¬ 
tainments were called deipna, and always came off 
at the latter part of the day, or at night. 

The scope and use of the word in the Hew Tes¬ 
tament correspond exactly to these representations, 
as may be seen from the following passages:— 

Matt, xxiii. 6: ‘‘ They make broad their phylac¬ 
teries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, 
and love the uppermost rooms at feasts^ [deipnois, 
suppers/^' 

Mark vi. 21: Herod on his birthday made a 
supper [deipnon'] to his lords, high captains, and 
chief estates of Galilee.^' 

Mark xii. 39: “ The scribes love the uppermost 
rooms at feasts [deipnois^ suppers.f’ 

Luke xiv. 12: “When thou makest a dinner 
[ariston] or a supper [deipnon], call not thy friends; 
. . . but when thou makest a feast," &c. 

Luke xiv. 16: “A certain man made a great 
supper [deipnon] and bade many.^' (See also verses 
17, 24, and chapter xx. 46.) 

John xii. 2: “There they made him a supper 


ANALOGY—AN INDEPENDENT ARGUMENT. 281 

[deipnori], and Martha served.’’ (See also chapters 
xiii. 27 4, and xxi. 20, where the word occurs in 
the same sense.) 

We might further illustrate this meaning from 
the Septuagint, in such passages as Daniel v. 1:— 
“Belshazzar the king made a great feast [deipnon, 
supper} to a thousand of his lords;” but it is un¬ 
necessary. Deipnon means a full meal, a banquet, 
a plentiful supper, an ample repast, the principal 
AND MOST abundant MEAL OF THE DAY, wllicll 
occurred in the evening, between mid-day and midnight. 
Dr. Fuller himself says, that Deipnon was, among 
the ancients, the most social and convivial of all 
their repasts,” and that “the word means A ban¬ 
quet, A feast.” (P. 226.) 

It is also to be observed that the Lord’s Supper, 
or deipnon, was instituted and first celebrated at 
night. Not only the meaning of the word which 
was chosen to describe it, but the very hour of its 
appointment and first observance, connect the 
Lord’s Supper with the evening and the close of 
the day. 

According to the plain, evident, and well-estab¬ 
lished meaning of words, therefore, and sustained 
by circumstances, two things would be essential to 
the sacramental deipnon. First, it must be a. full 
and plenteous meal; and, second, it must be taken in 
the evening. A fragment of bread a half-inch square, 
and a sip of wine that would scarcely fill a tea-spoon, 
is not a deipnon, as the Greeks used that word, any 
more than sprinkling a few drops of water on a 
man’s face is an immersion of him. Neither do 
we eat our suppers in the morning. It is as great 


282 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


a contradiction in terms and confusion of ideas to 
speak of supping in the morning as to speak of 
jDlunging a man by pouring water on him. 

Suppose, then, that we were to set ourselves to 
reason on the word deipnon as the immersionists 
reason on the word haptisma: we might make out 
a case to convict the Christian world in all ages 
of disobedience to a j)lain command of Christ. 
They say that haptisma means immersion and 
nothing else; we say that still more certainly does 
deipnon mean an evening repast. If the one denotes 
mode, the other with more certainty denotes time. 
They insist that haptisma includes in itself a total 
covering up of the whole body in water; we say, 
with far more reason and confidence, that deipnon 
includes in itself the provision and participation 
of the largest and fullest meal. If the one requires 
water enough to cover a man, the other, with 
greater certainty, requires food enough to fill a 
man and as many as are to partake of it. The 
words chosen in both are the words of God, and 
he knew what he meant by them. And if the 
common Greek usage of haptisma was to denote 
immersion, and we are to get God’s meaning in 
that word from common Greek usage, the common 
Greek usage of deipnon must also give us the idea 
attached to it by the Holy Ghost. 

What, then, has been the universal practice of 
the Church with regard to the sacramental deipnon't 
Have there ever been any denominations of Chris¬ 
tians who believed, or held it as necessary to a right 
communion, that it should be celebrated in the even¬ 
ing or that it should be made a full meal ? All parties 


ANALOGY—AN INDEPENDENT ARGUMENT. 283 

—Baptists with all others—are continually cele¬ 
brating the deipnon of the Savior in the morning; 
and none of them provide for it more than a bit of 
bread and a sip of wine for each communicant. We 
do not find fault with this. We believe that it 
adequately fulfills the mind of the Spirit and of 
Jesus on the subject. But, arguing as our modern 
immersionists, we might say, with holy indig¬ 
nation, What right have men to trample upon and 
ignore the time selected by the Savior in the insti¬ 
tution of this sacrament and ingrained in the 
name given to it by the Spirit of inspiration? 
VVdiat authority have they to make a pitiable abor¬ 
tion of a breakfast or dinner of what, according to 
the plain common import of God’s word, is to be 
an abundant and plentiful supper? If we cannot 
dispense with mode in baj^tism, we cannot dispense 
with time in its corresponding sacrament. If we 
cannot have baptism without immersion, for the 
same alleged reason we cannot have a supper in 
the morning or a deipnon for a hundred guests 
without a large supply of wine and bread. If time 
and quantity are nothing in the one sacrament, the 
name and circumstances of which call for it, mode 
and quantity are nothing in the other sacrament, 
the name and circumstances of which demand it 
still less. 

Assuming, then, that mode is invariably and 
essentially implied in the literal sense of baptisma^ 
which we have abundantly proven to be otherwise, 
the sin of those who practice sprinkling, wetting, 
or affusion in baptism consists simply in regarding 
mode as one of the accidents or circumstantials in 


284 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


this ordinance. This is all. And, if we are to 
suffer for this, we have a right to demand, with the 
Psalmist, ‘‘Let the righteous smite us; it shall be a 
kindness: and let him reprove us; it shall be an_ 
excellent oil, which shall not break our heads.” 
If our iniquity in this thing is to be punished with 
death, then let our Baptist friends consider the 
Savior’s challenge :—“ A?e that is without sin among 
you, let him cast the first stone.’' If they will insist 
that we distort and violate an ordinance of Christ 
by declining to be immersed or to immerse, we 
take the liberty of “ holding the mirror up to 
nature,” that their flagrant inconsistency may be 
seen. They have expunged the elements of time 
and quantity from the ordinance of the Lord’s 
Supper as celebrated in their societies, and think 
they have done no violence to literal exposition 
and the plain meaning of words which certainly 
contain them; and it will not answer for them now 
to turn about and condemn and excommunicate us 
for thinking it non-essential as to how the water 
is applied in holy baptism. Let them ponder first 
those searching words of Jesus :—“Why beholdest 
thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but 
considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? 
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother. Let me pull 
out the mote out of thine*eye; and, behold, a beam 
is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite! first cast out 
the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt 
see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s 
eye.” 

The immersionist attempts to defend the peculi¬ 
arity of his procedure by asserting that mode is 


ANALOGY—AN INDEPENDENT ARGUMENT. libD 


inseparable from baptism and therefore belongs 
essentially to the ordinance. We say that his 
argument criminates himself, and, by proving too 
much, recoils upon his own head. Time and abun¬ 
dance of provisions are as necessarily included in 
deipnon as it is possible for mode to be in baptisma; 
and when he gives us the warrant for his liberty 
to eject time from the Lord’s Supper, and for his 
substitution of a little fragment of bread and a 
little sip of wine for a full meal, we shall be pre¬ 
pared to establish our right to dispense with his 
favorite mode in the administration of baptism. 
Until he does this, all his philological reasonings 
on the word baptism are completely nullified, and, 
in all justice, forever silent. 

We need no other argument. This in itself 
sufficiently disposes m the question. It winds up 
the whole controversy into a nutshell. It puts 
the dispute in a light in which there is no room 
for philological mystification and which may easily 
be understood. It concedes the whole Baptist 
assumption, and yet com 2 )letely confutes the in¬ 
ference founded_ upon it and leaves the cause of 
immersion ism in inextricable embarrassments. It 
settles the case. It is an unanswered and un¬ 
answerable ARGUMENT. 

With these observations we close our discussion 
upon mode. 


28G 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


CHAPTEK XXI. 

INFANT BAPTISM NO SIN 

We come now to the second point of difference 
between immersionists and the Church general. 
It relates to pedobaptism, or the baptism of in¬ 
fants and little children. 

This is an important department of this con¬ 
troversy, presenting a question which deserves to 
be carefully and dispassioi^tely considered. If 
the position assumed Iry Ou^mmersionist friends 
be correct, a very great revolution in the views 
and practices of Christians generally is imperi¬ 
ously demanded. There is serious error on the 
one side or the other. And, as we have proposed 
to ourselves the task of giving a resume of the 
whole Baptist controversy, it remains for us to 
enter somewhat upon this point also. 

The first thing we notice in our opponents with 
reference to the baptism of infants is the whole¬ 
sale and unqualified manner in which they con¬ 
demn and denounce it. They show no hesitation 
at all in declaring it one of the most dreadful and 
reprehensible abominations that has ever afflicted 
the human race. 

Mr. Kinghorn regards it as ^^the very precursor 
of Antichristj the inlet of almost every abomination” 


INFANT BAPTISM NO SIN. 287 

Dr. Carson declares it to be the fortress of the 
man of sin,—the very sjpirit of Antichrist ” 

Dr. Ide execrates it as that old upas-tree which 
with its death-distilling branches —popery, prelacy, 
and skepticism— has for fourteen centuries shaded 
and blasted the world” 

Dr. Howell declaims against it as ‘‘an m7 which 
despoils the Church and subverts the doctrine of 
infant salvation,—w^hich is the grand foundation 
of the union of Church and State, the source of 
religious persecutions, a hinderance to the conver¬ 
sion of the world, a sin against God, one of the 
most calamitous evils with which the Church has 
ever been visited, the most melancholy of all evils, 

AND MORE DISASTROUS TO THE CAUSE OF TRUTH 
AND SALVATION THAN ANY OF THE PROGENY OF 

superstition’^ ! 

^^The Western Baptist Eecorder,” printed at 
Louisville, Kentucky, says, “ Of all the damnable 
heresies in the black catalogue which has befouled 
the fame of Christianity, we consider infant baptism 
the most damnable. If other heresies have damned 
their thousands, this has damned its tens of 

THOUSANDS.” 

Dr. Fuller, with all his disavowals, chimes in 
with the same general strain of his brethren, de¬ 
nouncing infant baptism as “an antichristian 
practice, introducing and perpetuating the most 
glaring inconsistency and mischievous confusion, 
tarnishing the glory of the atonement, and doing 
vast injury to our children.” 

Now, all this is very expressive language. If 
immersionists are correct in \vhat they say, there 


288 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


never has been a curse more dreadful, or a blight 
more terrific, or a sin more heinous, than that in¬ 
volved in the solemn dedication of little innocents 
to the Savior who redeemed them, and the ad¬ 
ministration to them of that ordinance which he 
himself has appointed as the sign of his love and 
saving grace to those who are his. Tyranny and 
war and pestilence bear no comparison with it in 
evilness. Infanticide itself is a blessing by its 
side; for the one touches only the body and places 
the soul beyond the reach of pollution, whilst the 
other murders and damns the immortal spirit. 
We are sometimes in doubt to know whether we 
are to take these men as speaking in sober earnest, 
or whether they are merely declaiming for the bene¬ 
fit of a sectarian cause. But, in either case, they 
put themselves into a very responsible position. 
If they are not in sober earnest, they are trifling 
with the consciences and souls of men and putting 
forth lies in the name of God. And if they are 
seriously convinced of what they say, they have 
some very momentous settlements to make with 
the Christian sense and common judgment of the 
religious world. 

I. If it is such a terrible sin, such a guilty 
spoliation of all that is good, to baptize children, 
what, then, are we to think of that long proces¬ 
sion of good men who are acknowledged on all 
hands to be the lights of the world and the salt 
of the earth, and who have Avith great strenuous¬ 
ness adhered all their lives long to this damning 
heresy? Luther and Melanchthon, Knox and 
Howe, Leighton and Baxter, Wesley and Hod 


INFANT BAPTISM NO SIN. 


289 


dridge, Franke and Arndt, Brainerd and Pajson, 
Dwight and Chalmers, and all the very flower of 
Christendom for hundreds and hundreds of years, 
have been strict Pedobaptists. They all stood up 
for the baptism of infants. Their names and influ¬ 
ence were fully committed in its favor. And are 
we now to regard them as the enemies of the 
Church of Christ, the allies and abettors of Anti¬ 
christ? Are we at length to set them down as 
the veriest sons of Belial ? Where, then, has the 
Church of Jesus been for so many ages? What 
becomes of the holy faith and lauded virtue of the 
martyrs who cheerfully laid down their lives out of 
love for Jesus? What hope could they have with 
this sin of baptizing little children upon them, 
unrepented of and unforgiven? Where, then, 
shall we find the Joshuas and Elis and Ezras and 
Davids and Jeremiahs and Daniels of the gospel 
ages? Has the world all this time mistaken 
them? Must we at length reverse the sentiments 
of love and grateful praise which generations 
liave inscribed upon their tombs, and cast out 
their names as the pests of time, and think of 
them now as the tenants of eternal perdition? 
God of our fathers, has it come to this? Yes, it 
has, if the doctrines of modern Baptists on the 
baptizing of infants be true. Alas! who can set 
limits to sectarian fanaticism? 

2. If infant baptism is this damnable heresy” 
which immersionists declare it to be,—if it is such 
a crying abomination, such a scarlet dragon, drip¬ 
ping from head to foot with the blood of souls,— 
the Scriptures must certainly take some notice of 
25 


290 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


it or give some cautions against it. An apostas}^ 
so fearful, a heresy so terrific, wide-spread, and 
long-continued, could not have been overlooked in 
Christ’s word of warning to the Churches. Other¬ 
wise, revelation would be an insufficient guide, 
and does not thoroughly furnish us for every good 
work. But do the Scriptures refer to it? Not a 
writer against Pedobaptism has ever brought for¬ 
ward one single word of inspiration cautioning 
against it or in the least condemning it. With 
all their enthusiasm, research, and sectarian zeal, 
they have not even pretended that the Bible con¬ 
tains such a passage. Against popery, schism, 
and skepticism, against evil in all its Protean 
shapes, and against abuses of divine ordinances 
of all forms and grades, the Scriptures present the 
fullest and most overwhelming array. But here 
is a thing which we are told is the most mischiev¬ 
ous of errors,—the most melancholy of all the 
progeny of superstition,—a death-distilling upas, 
blasting the earth for almost one-third of its age, 
—the parent of popery, superstition, and unbelief, 
spreading ruin and damnation over all the face of 
Christendom from the beginning until now; and 
yet not a word to be found against it in the Bible, 
not an allusion to it in the prophecies, and not a 
precept in all God’s revelation to protect the 
devout parent from it! Can such a thing be 
possible? Is not this very silence of the Holy 
Ghost proof enough that infant baptism is not 
and cannot be that blasting curse and damning 
sin described in Baptist writings on this subject? 

3. And then again: if the baptizing of infants 


INFANT BAPTISM NO SIN. 


291 


be so sinful and damning, we have a right to 
know in what the strength or substance of the 
crime lies. What is sin? Inspiration answers, 

Sin is the transgression of the law.’^ Where 
no law is, there is no transgression.’^ But what 
law is transgressed in infant baptism? Can a 
single precept of God be pointed out as violated 
by it? 

Take the law of parental obligation and duty. 
Does the baptism of infants in any way trans¬ 
gress it? No: it inculcates, enforces, and seeks 
to fulfill it by a solemn and formal acknowledg¬ 
ment. 

Take the law of personal responsibility. Does 
infant baptism violate this? No; for this too it 
acknowledges in all its rightful amplitude, and 
marks the child as the. Lord’s from its very 
infancy and binds it over to be his follower and 
servant. It may be said that such a covenant 
has no binding force, because the child does not 
voluntarily participate in making it. We answer, 
if this law is to prevail, then there is no obligation, 
either to God or man, except so far as an indi¬ 
vidual voluntarily chooses to have it so. It makes 
our consent the essence of responsibility,—which is 
a doctrine we repudiate and abhor, as contrary to 
all Scripture and common sense. God’s laws are 
the same upon saint and sinner. They are as 
binding upon him who does not consent to them as 
upon him who does. And as well might we say 
that a child is not lawfully under parental control, 
or not bound to obey the laws of the land in 
which it was born and lives, because it was not 


292 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


first consulted as to who should be its parents or 
in what country it was to be born and reared. 
According to all constitutions of God and man, 
the child follows the parent, lives the parent’s 
life, is affected by the parent’s condition, and is 
most intimately bound up in the parent’s will. 
God has made it so ; and no man can alter it. And 
when pious parents, with the aid of God’s ordi¬ 
nance, dedicate their child to God, there is a trans¬ 
fer made of that child by those whom God has 
made its representatives, which is owned and held 
valid in heaven. So far, then, from repudiating, 
infant baptism enforces and establishes, personal 
responsibility. It brings vividly to view, and 
thus tightens up, the bonds under which all mpn 
stand to Him who made them. 

Take the law of social privilege. Baptizing 
infants does in no way transgress it. It abridges 
no rightful liberty of the child. Nay, it increases 
the hopes and privileges of the little learner in 
Christ, by bringing the proper persons under 
expressed consent to see to its spiritual wants and 
training. 

Take even the law of baptism and Christian 
discipleship itself, about which immersionists and 
Anabaptists make so much ado. Infant bap¬ 
tism in no way transgresses it. Does it specify 
qualifications? Christ himself finds all those 
qualifications in infants. such,” says he, 

the kingdom of heaven” Nay, so perfect is every 
thing in the little child which is required to qualify 
an adult for baptism and discipleship, that he says 
further, “Except ye be converted and become as 


INFANT BAPTISM NO SIN. 


2S3 


LITTLE CHILDREN, ye shall uot enter into the Jdngdoni 
of heaven’’ Every thing required of the adult is 
already in the little child. The child is the modelj 
so presented by the Maker of the law, and there¬ 
fore morally and spiritually as much entitled to 
this sacramental acknowledgment of disciplcship 
as any one can possibly be. Upon that point, 
then, there is no transgression. Does instruction 
enter into the case? There is nothing to require 
that instruction to precede the discipleship. It is 
the coming of one into the position of a learner in 
Christ that constitutes the discipleship; and if the 
baptism of inflints only serves as the introduction 
of them to this position of learners in Christ, it 
fulfills all the requirements of the law. 

We therefore press and reiterate the question. 
Where, then, is the transgression? No law is vio¬ 
lated; and where are we to get strength for the 
life of this dreadful and damnable sin? No right 
is invaded; no privilege is abridged; no principle 
of morality is outraged; no precept of God is in¬ 
fracted. Let the law^ be shown on wdiich the great 
world of saints is indicted; let us hear its pro¬ 
visions and penalties; ajid if wm have disobeyed 
this consecration of our babes to God, wm will re¬ 
pent in dust and ashes. But, until that is done, w^e 
will conclude and hold that our accusers must be 
mistaken zealots, and that infant baptism is neither 
mortal sin nor “ damnable heresy.’^ 


25* 


294 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


CHAPTEE XXII. 

INFANT BAPTISM NOT CONTRARY TO THE COM¬ 
MISSION. 

Looking at the fierce and terrific accusations 
which iramersionists bring against infant baptism, 
we would naturally suppose that they had some 
strong and positive foundation upon which to 
rest. We would at once expect to see an arra}^ of 
Scripture and reason not easy to be met. But, 
having examined about a dozen of the leading 
Baptist books upon the subject, we have been more 
than surprised—we have been amazed—at the 
lameness and barrenness of their cause. With all 
their parade and assurance, we have been able to 
find but one single positive argument that has 
been produced anywhere .to make out their charge 
of “damnable heres}^.” It is that the commission 
to baptize forbids the baptism of infants. 

Jesus says to his ministers, “Go ye, therefore, 
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’^ 
This is the commission; and on this the whole case 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 295 

of the fierce assaults upon the baptizing of little 
children is made to repose. Dr. Carson says, am 
willing to hang the whole controversy upon this 
passage. . . . Even if I found another command, 
enjoining the baptism of the infants of believers, I 
should not move an inch from my position. ... I 
would gainsay an angel from heaven who should 
say that this commission may extend to the baptism 
of any but believers [adults]. . . . Here I stand 
entrenched; and I defy the ingenuity of earth and 
hell to driv^e me from my position.’’ (Pp. 169,170.) 
Howell says, ^‘Infant baptism is prohibited by the 
apostolic commission; [i.e. the commission given 
to the apostles.] This is the law of baptism, insti¬ 
tuted by Christ himself, and the only law he ever 
ordained on the subject.” (P. 33.) Dr. Fuller 
says ^‘the argument from the commission is dis¬ 
tinct, conclusive, irrevocable. Even if infant bap¬ 
tism could be established by other portions of the 
Bible, it would not, could not, be baptism under 
the commission.” (P. 112.) And he further dis¬ 
courses as if it were a waste of time, a casting of 
pearls before swine, to attempt argument with a 
man who does not perceive that this commission, 
in spite of every thing, forever excludes and pro¬ 
hibits the baptizing of little children. 

How, it does appear a little strange that these 
men are unwilling here to allow the Scriptures 
to explain themselves, or even ‘^an angel from 
heaven” to explain them, when, a little while ago, 
they considered it proper to call in the old heathen 
Greeks to tell us what Jesus meant, and by the 
pains of excommunication hold us bound to abide 


296 


THE BAPTIST SYSTE3I EXAMINED 


by what these old heathen say. But it is useless 
to think of fathoming all the depths of Baptist 
logic. The question is, Does this commission exclude 
infants from baptism? We say that it does not. 
And in this we are sustained by the conviction 
and constant practice of the great body of Chris¬ 
tian people from the beginning until this present 
moment. When Baptists assert that it does, they 
take issue with the whole East and with nearly 
the w’hole West. They take issue with Origen, 
Eirmilian, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius, Cyp¬ 
rian, Yictorinus, Lucian, Laetantius, Eusebius, 
Athanasius, Cyril, Hilary, Epiphanius, Basil, 
Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysos¬ 
tom, and Augustine. They take issue with Huss, 
and Wickliffe, and Luther, and Melanchthon, and 
Zwingli, and the great mass of learned Christian 
men in all nations and ages. Dr. Fuller quotes 
from Grotius, Calvin, Barrow, Saurin, Vossius, 
Doddridge, Limboreh, Whitby, Venema, and Bax¬ 
ter, as if they were authorities in his favor; but 
what are they, compared with the list which we 
have given, and which might be swelled to twenty 
times the extent? Hay, every one of these men 
to whom he has referred approved, practiced, and 
advocated the baptizing of infants, and therefore 
could not have believed wdth him that this com¬ 
mission excludes them. If the question, there¬ 
fore, is to be decided by authority, it is already 
settled, by a perfect avalanche of the greatest 
names that have ever been worn by flesh and 
blood, including every one of those cited by Dr. 
Fuller himself. 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 297 

We propose, however, to look at the commission 
itself. The particular part of it on which Baptists 
rely as excluding infants is the word “teach 
\inatheteusate,'y' which they say must be fulfilled 
before there can be any baptizing. Dr. Fuller 
says, “It is as plain as the sun in the firmament 
that before baptizing any one I am to teach him, 
and therefore that infants are not to be baptized.’^ 
But Dr. Fuller’s light on this point comes from 
some other sun than “the Sun of Eighteousness.” 
Matheteusate is a word which here, and nearly 
everywhere else in the New Testament, is used to 
denote the entire work of evangelization,—the 
whole ofiSce and end of the gospel in its practical 
effects upon individuals or nations. It is one of 
the largest and most comprehensive words used in 
the New Testament. It describes and includes 
the entire commission of all the ministers and 
Churches of Christ in this world. No preacher of 
the gospel, and no Church, has any thing more to 
do for Christ, from the day of Pentecost “to the 
end of the world,” than that which is expressed 
in this one word matheteusate. And all the highest 
attainments of the best Christians, in know¬ 
ledge, faith, obedience, and conformity to Christ, 
never once go beyond what is expressed in this 
word. The noblest and holiest of the apostles, 
in all their high qualities as Christians, were 
nothing more than mathetai. All that the apostles 
ever did in execution of the Savior’s commands, 
and all that the Church has ever done or can do in 
these respects, is comprehended by this one term 
It is used more than two hundred and fifty times 


298 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


m the New Testament 3 and, wherever it is used 
with reference to the Savior’s commission, it is 
employed in this large and comprehensive sense. 
Hence, if the Baptist interpretation is correct, and 
the meaning of matheteusate must be fulfilled upon 
a man before he is to be baptized, there is no 
authority in the New Testament to baptize him at 
all. The gospel has no commission which is not 
included, in matheteusate. This is a position which 
no man can overthrow. If there is any thing 
clear in the New Testament, it is this. And if 
people must be mathetai before we can proceed to 
baptize them, we have no right to baptize anybody 3 
for no one is a Christian mathetaes before he is bap¬ 
tized. 

This settles the point that there must be some¬ 
thing wrong about the Baptist interpretation of 
this commission. In their zeal to exclude infants 
they necessarily exclude everybody else. 

Again: the Baptist interpretation of the com¬ 
mand makes it consist of three several things to 
be done, and that in a fixed order. First, that we 
are to make a man a mathetaes, —a true and full 
disciple of Christ 3 second, that after he has been 
made a disciple we are to baptize him 3 and, third, 
that after he has been made a disciple, and bap¬ 
tized in addition to his discipleship, we are next 
and finally to teach him Christ’s commands. What 
nonsense! Dr. Fuller speaks of ‘‘this document as 
having been stretched on a Procustean bed, and, in 
derision of Scripture, amid the outcries of truth 
and grammar and common sense, violently man¬ 
gled.” Verily, it has been 3 and he is one of the 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 


299 


priests who officiated at the interesting ceremony. 
Let us examine the case. 

1. Upon the point of Scripture. The Scriptures 
everywhere teach that a Christian mathetaes —one 
who has been made the subject of the command 
matheteusate —is one who is in all respects a follower 
of Christ,—one who is lacking in obedience to none 
of the ordinances or requirements of Christianity; 
not one who is only moved to become a Christian, 
but one who has already been made a Christian. 
(See the two hundred and fifty texts upon the 
subject.) It is, then, indeed a ^‘derision of Scrip¬ 
ture” to claim that one must first undergo all that 
is meant by matheteusate anterior to baptism. It 
is a direct contradiction of every passage in which 
the word mathetaes is found in the New Testament. 

2. Upon the point of truth’’ We suppose that 
Dr. Fuller holds his own formal projDOsitions to be 
the truth. In the latter part of his book he devotes 
eight pages to show that baptism is a prerequisite 
to Church-membership.” It was not necessary for 
him to be so learned upon this point, as no one 
denies it or ever has denied it. We agree entirely 
with it. But it is equallj^ true that there is no 
Christian discipleship and no mathetaes where there 
is no Church-membership. Christ has no disciples 
but those who are in and constitute his Church, 
which is his body. Not all in the Church visible 
are really mathetai; but there are no mathetai out¬ 
side of the Church. And if there is no Church- 
membership where there is no baptism, it is indeed 

amid the outcries of truth” that men requir(3 U3 
to be mathetai before we are baptized. 


800 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


3. Upon the point of grammar. If Christ had 
meant this commission to enjoin three distinct 
items, each by itself standing in the same relation 
to the command as the other, the laws of grammar 
would require that each item should be enjoined in 
the same form if contained in the same sentence. 
Looking at the wording of the commission, we find 
it delivered in one imperative verb (matheteusate) 
and two participles, {baptizontes and didaskontes ^ 
Dr. Fuller takes these three words as alike impera¬ 
tive, and as enjoining three distinct things. But 
we have the authority of Mr. Campbell that the 
active participle always, when connected with the 
imperative mood, expresses the manner in which 
the thing commanded is to be performed. Cleanse 
the room,—washing it; clean the floor,—sweeping 
it; cultivate the field,—ploughing it; sustain the 
hungry,—feeding them; furnish the soldiers,—arm¬ 
ing them; convert the nations,—baptizing them, 
are exactly the same forms of speech.” (Christ. 
Bapt. p. 630.) This is all correct. The thing to 
be done is expressed by the imperative verb; and 
it is only the manner of the doing that is described 
in the connected participle. And so 'matheteusate — 
“disciple the nations”—describes the whole work 
to be done. This is the general imperative injunc¬ 
tion, including all that follows; whilst the parti¬ 
ciples— baptizontes and didaskontes —only describe 
the mode or jiarticular way in which the disciples 
are to be made. Every Greek grammarian will 
testify that this is the only true construction of 
the phraseology. Matheteusate presents the work 
to be accomplished, and the participles baptizontes 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 301 

and didaskontes describe the way in which the great 
work enjoined is to be effected. In other words, 
we are to make disciples of all nations by baptizing 
them and instructing them in the commands of 
Christ. This is the plain “grammar” of the case; 
and its “outcries” are mighty against the tortures 
inflicted by Baptist interpretation. 

4. A word now on the point of “common sense” 
If the theory of our recusants be correct, then a 
man must be a mathetaes —a disciple and follower 
of Christ—not only previous to baptism, hut even 
before he is instructed in the commands of Christ. The 
instruction here is the last thing named. Baptism 
precedes it, and discipleship also. So that, to be 
consistent with Baptist interpretation, wm must 
baptize the nations before we instruct them in 
Christianity, and make disciples of them before 
either teaching them or baptizing them!! Besides, 
if Christ meant that we should make disciples of 
people as a thing to be done before they are bap¬ 
tized and taught, then what is discipleship? How 
is it to be effected ? In what does it consist? The 
Scriptures are silent. Common sense has no reply. 
Baptists are contending for a mere phantom of the 
imagination. And if they are honest, and mean to 
stick to their theory upon this “document,” they 
must transmute Christianity itself into a piece of 
absurdity and nonsense. I know of nothing which 
more outrages “common sense.” 

Well, then, if matheteusate is not to be taken sepa¬ 
rate from baptizontes and didaskontes, and does not 
set up a condition which is to precede both,—that 
is, if there can be no discipleship anterior to and 


302 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


apart from the baptizing and the teaching,—it is 
settled and demonstrated forever that there is 
nothing in this commission to exclude infants from 
baptism. The very first thing here enjoined, in 
the way of executing the matheteumte^ is to baptize 
in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and, 
along with, or following after, as the case may be, 
to teach the baptized to observe whatsoever things 
Jesus has commanded. This is the commission, 
according to the 28th of Matthew: nothing more 
and nothing less, as respects the point now under 
consideration. There is nothing in it to hinder 
the very first approach of Christianity to any child 
born in Christendom from being in the shape of 
the ordinance of baptism, to make it a learner in 
the School of Christ. So far as any terms of the 
command are concerned, our infant children have 
as much a place in.it as in ^^all nations.^* 

But Dr. Fuller, after all, does not appear to be 
entirely satisfied with his argument on ‘Hhe only 
law Christ ever ordained on the subject.^^ He 
must needs connect with it another and different 
passage, (Mark xvi. 15,) which contains not one 
single word of command on the subject of baptism. 
Mark tells us that, after the resurrection of the 
Savior, he said unto his chosen apostles, ‘^Go ye 
into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature.’' This is the commission, and the only 
commission, according to Mark. How any one 
should be able to extract from it a prohibition of 
the baptism of infants is a mystery. But Dr. 
Fuller has attempted it. He says that the go 
preach” of Mark is the same as the matheteusate 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 303 

of Matthew, and that the one explains the other 
Very well: then the preaching of the gospel im¬ 
plies every thing that the ministers of Jesus have 
to do, in their official capacity, in this world 3 for 
matheteusate includes the entire Christian commis¬ 
sion, as we have shown. To preach the gospel, 
then, comprises also the administration of the 
sacraments; and this preaching of the gospel is to 
be ‘^TO EVERY CREATURE.^" How, then, can infants 
be excluded ? 

Dr. Fuller says that preaching the gospel implies 
teaching. Very well: children may be taught, and 
must be taught; but neither in this passage, nor in 
all the Bible, is there any thing requiring that they 
must be taught before they dare be baptized. The 
commission, in its own terms, apjdies to “all 
nations” and “ to every creature.” Its substance 
is, the making of disci^iles, learners, followers, of 
Christ. The specific way to do it is by baptizing 
and teaching. The teaching may be before, along 
with, or after the baptism. Christ leaves all that 
open to the necessities of the case. In either event 
the coin mission is adequately fulfilled. If any 
stress is to be laid upon the order in which Christ 
has arranged the words of the command, baptism 
comes first and the teaching (didaskontes) afterward, 
as the subject is able to receive it. He who finds 
any thing in all this to exclude the children of 
believers must first interline the record. Christ’s 
words do not contain it. 

Much importance is sometimes laid upon the phrase 
in Mark, “ He that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved.” This, Dr. Fuller thinks, “ plainly requires, 


304 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


1st. Teaching or preaching the gospel; 2d. Faith; 
3d. Bajitism;’^ and that this is the established 
divine order in every case. Now, if this be true, 
then no man can ever afterward be saved if per¬ 
chance he should be baptized before he has really 
exercised true faith. Dr. Fuller places faith 
second, baptism third; accordingly, if baptism by 
any means comes before faith, the divine order is 
vitiated, the terms of salvation are not complied 
with, and heaven is lost. This is the natural and 
necessary implication of his interj^retation. But 
the words of Christ specify no such order. Faith 
may come to maturity before or after baptism, and 
still l}e saving faith. ‘‘He that believeth and is 
baptized ,—[whether before the exercise of personal 
faith or afterward,]—he that believeth and is bap¬ 
tized shall be saved.” Who could ask any more 
room for the case of peojjle baptized in infancy 
than is furnished in these very words ? It is not 
said, He that believeth first, and afterward shall 
be baptized, shall be saved, but He that believeth 
and IS —whether already or hereafter —baptized, shall 
be saved. Christ’s words prescribe no order of 
essential antecedence or succession. Let the faith 
come first or last, only so that there is faith and 
baptism, there is salvation. This is God’s cove¬ 
nant; and woe be to him who undertakes to alter 
or restrict it! 

All expedients thus failing our immersionist 
friends, they next fix upon the word believeth” as 
it here occurs in Mark’s account, and insist that 
the commission limits baptism to such as do per¬ 
sonally exercise faith prior to, or at the time of, 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 305 

their baptism. Dr. Carson says, I will risk the 
credit of my understanding on my success in show¬ 
ing that, according to this commission, believers only 
are to be baptized.** But better and greater men 
than Dr. Carson have risked the credit of their 
understandings upon the position that what Mark 
here says about faith and baptism permits the 
administration of baptism to intants as much as to 
any other class. So far from being a command to 
baptize only adult believers, these words are no 
command at all. They contain a simple announce¬ 
ment that all competent to receive the gospel with 
a personal faith must do so on pain of damnation. 
This no one disputes. Baptism by itself will save 
no man. “He that believeth and is baptized shall 
be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned,’^ 
no matter whether he has been baptized or not. 
There must be personal faith in all capable of exer¬ 
cising it, or there can be no salvation. All are 
agreed upon this. But the question is, whether 
this personal faith must necessarily precede one’s 
baptism. That question is not decided by these 
words, or by any other Scripture. Baptizing an 
infant does not incapacitate it to grow up a believer 
any more than leaving it unbaptized. And if it is 
baptized, and ever comes to the exercise of faith, it 
is saved as certainly and as etfectually as any adult. 
He who denies this denies the word of the Lord 
Jesus. The promise is to it as much as to any 
other. How, then, is it excluded ? 

But, again: the Baptist argument that the 
gospel enjoins the baptism of believing converts, 
and that therefore none but believers are to be 
26 *^ 


306 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


baptized, has a very subtle sophistry underlying it, 
which needs to be exposed. It proceeds ujion the 
assumption that infants are skeptics and infidels, 
—which is untrue. 

We will not now suffer ourselves to be drawn 
into the metaphysical speculation as to whether a 
child can or cannot have faith. We know that 
faith has its degrees and phases, that salvation is 
accommodated to the necessities of all classes of 
mankind, that infancy and childhood are the 
periods of the highest bloom of a confiding dispo¬ 
sition, that faith is the gift of God and not the 
product of human thought, understanding, feeling, 
or will, and that the administrations of the Holy 
Ghost are bound to no age or degree of intelli¬ 
gence, but extend as well to the infant just from 
its mother’s womb as to the preacher on Zion’s 
walls or the apostle amid the scenes of Pentecost. 
I)r. Fuller agrees that infants are saved, and 
refuses to have anything to say to those who deny 
it. And certainly, if they are saved, they must be 
capable of receiving, and do receive, such experi¬ 
ences of God’s methods of sanctification as to meet 
all the necessities of their tender age. It is also 
one of the common laws of humanity that our 
children are reckoned to follow their parents. If 
the parents are Jews, the children are Jews and 
stand in general relations with their parents. 
If the parents are citizens of the United States, 
their children are citizens of the United States by 
virtue of their connection with their parents. 
Though incompetent to the duties of citizenship in 
the full extent, still, constructively, they are citi- 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 307 

zens, not aliens, not foreigners, not enemies. And 
this common law of nature holds in all our social 
relations. God hath set man in families; and this 
natural constitution is fully recognized in the 
economy of grace. The gospel treats with adults; 
but the relation of adults to it also includes and 
affects their infant children the same as in every 
other case. The infants of pious parents are from 
their very birth in the school of Christ and learners 
of him. Nor is it in the power of man to form 
an estimate as to the extent to which a devout and 
believing spirit in parents may be made to infuse 
itself into their children, or as to how far the dis- 
cipleship of pious parents secures and includes 
discipleship in their infant offspring. It is certain 
that divine influences may be communicated and 
holy emotions awakened even before the child has 
learned the use of speech; and that, where parents 
will faithfully perform their part, their children 
will needs grow up disciples, with a mould of piety 
dating back in early infancy. By the necessities 
of their age and the relations in which God has 
placed them, their case must be construed with 
that of their parents. They are not infidels, not 
skeptics, not foreigners and strangers, but Chris¬ 
tians,—constructive believers ,—at least until they 
have grown to years of discretion and by their 
own deeds have placed themselves in a different 
attitude. 

^‘What an idea!’’ exclaims Mr. Carson. Might 
we not as well attempt to cure bedlam with syllo¬ 
gisms as reason with persons who speak of be¬ 
lieving, militant infants? If any general should 


308 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

talk of raising an army of infants to oppose an 
invading enemy, he would at once be deemed 
insane, and his sovereign would not one moment 
longer intrust him to command,—no, not though 
he were the Duke of Wellington. But, when doc¬ 
tors of divinity speak like madmen, it is only the 
depth of their theological learning; and they are 
only the more admired.'’ (P. 217.) Dr. Fuller re¬ 
echoes his master in this storm of hard words." 
Let us see, then, where this terrific charge of hed- 
lamism, madness, lunatic ravings, falls, and with what 
sort of logic it is sustained. 

In Jeremiah i. 5, God says to the youthful jiro- 
phet, ‘‘Before thou earnest forth out of the womb 
I sanctified thee." In Hosea xi. 1, the Lord saith, 
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him." In 
Luke i. 15, an angel declares of John that he should 
be “filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his 
mother’s womb." Paul says to Timothy, (iii. 15,) 
“From a child [ajpo brephous,—from an infant] thou 
hast known the Holy Scriptures." And in Matt, 
xxi. 16, the Savior himself says, “ Out of the mouths 
of babes and sucklings God has perfected praise," 
and, on another occasion, took little children in 
his arms and declared, “ Of such is the kingdom of 
heaven” If these are to be taken as the utterances 
of bedlam and the ravings of lunatics^ we leave our 
Baptist friends to settle the matter with Him “who 
spake in time past unto the fathers by the pro¬ 
phets." We prefer to see in them a divine interest 
and spiritual susceptibility in little children, es¬ 
pecially as related to believing parents, which 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 809 


forbid US to hold and treat them as aliens and blas¬ 
phemers. 

We also arraign, as unsound, unscriptural, and 
vicious, that principle which would exclude from a 
community all such as, if wholly made up of them, 
would not be competent to all its requisite func¬ 
tions. If such a rule were to be put in force, the 
Church, and the State, and humanity itself, would 
speedily be swept out of existence. It is contrary 
to all nature and to all the principles that govern 
in human things. Of course it would be insane to 
^Halk of raising an army of infants to oppose an 
invading enemy.^^ But would it be less insane 
for a community at war to turn over into the 
hands of the enemy all such as are incompetent to 
take the places of soldiers in the field ? Because 
infants cannot occupy the trenches, are they 
therefore to be treated as aliens ^ and enemies? 
What could be more absurd? And yet this, 
according to Mr. Carson’s figure, is exactly what 
our Baptist friends are doing in refusing to 
admit our infants to be of the community of be¬ 
lievers. 

Let us compare the Baptist principle of argu¬ 
mentation with certain facts. Suppose that some 
statesman were to propose the organization of a 
congress or parliament of infants. “ He would at 
once be deemed insane,” says Mr. Carson. Why? 
Because infants have not the knowledge and expe¬ 
rience for legislation. And yet it was deemed 
right and proper for the Prince of Wales to be 
acknowledged as a member of the British House 
of Lords from infancj^; and from his birth or bap- 


310 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

tism his name occupied the first place on the roll 
of that honorable house, without disadvantage to 
British interests or to the credit of the British 
Constitution. In the book of Numbers, iii. 28, we 
read of the family of the Kohathites, that to their 
males ‘‘/rom a month old and upward’^ was given 
the charge of keeping the sanctuary. “What!” 
I)r. Carson may say; “infants a month old keep 
God’s sanctuary I Might we not as well attempt 
to cure bedlam with syllogisms as reason with 
persons who talk of infants keeping a charge 
Yet this was an arrangement of God himself, and 
recorded by the Holy Ghost for our learning. In 
Deuteronomy xxix. 10, Moses says to Israel, “Ye 
stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; 
your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your 
officers, with all the men of Israel, your little 
ONES, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy 
camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer 
of thy water; that thou shouldst enter into covenant 
with the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the 
Lord thy God maketh with thee this day.” What! 
infants enter into covenant with God! Infants 
stand up to take an oath! Madness! madness! 
exclaim our Baptist friends. But either Moses 
was a lunatic, or the Holy Ghost a liar, or this 
very thing was done. Little children, even of the 
youngest age, were accounted parties to this great 
spiritual transaction, and that by authority of 
God. Let our recusants get around it if they can. 
Again: in 2 Chron. xx. we read, that when Am¬ 
mon, Moab, and the dwellers in Mount Seir 
marched their combined forces against Jehosha- 



INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 311 
phat, “All Judah stood before the Lord, with 

THEIR LITTLE ONES, their wiveS, AND THEIR CHIL¬ 
DREN;” and their united supplication was, “O our 
God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no 
might against this company: . . . but our eyes 
are upon thee.” Here are infants and children 
reckoned as taking part in a great public suppli¬ 
cation and engaged in the work of opposing an 
enemy. How could this be said of babes ? Yet 
God does say it of an entire community, in which 
babes are specified as doing what their parents 
did. They were reckoned with the people with 
whom they were domestically related; and this 
is, the common custom of the inspired writers. 

We submit here the question put by Lr. Eice:— 
“ When did God ever enter into covenant with parents 
without including their infant children? Is there a 
solitary example of the kind in the Bible?” Hot 
one. The covenant with Abraham included the 
youngest children. The covenant of Moses did 
the same. And when Peter, “full of the Holy 
Ghost,” came to expound the new covenant on 
the day of Pentecost, he said to all who yielded to 
his words, “ The promise is to you and to your 
CHILDREN.” (Acts ii. 39.) 

This ought to settle the point that children are 
not to be viewed as aliens and infidels, but that 
they follow, as infants, the condition and relations 
of their parents; and that, if domestically related 
to believers, they are to be reckoned as believers 
and to be treated in some sense as such. All this 
hue and cry, then, about baptizing unbelievers—as 
if we were baptizing skeptics and infidels when 


S12 


TIIL BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


we baptize infants—is without foundation and con¬ 
trary to the letter and the whole spirit of the 
Scriptures. 

Then again: the rigid interpretation insisted 
on by Baptists, that the commission allows the 
baptizing of none but such as actually, truly, and 
personally believe, involves other embarrassments. 
If we are to baptize believers only, how can 
we baptize anybody? Do Baptists fulfill their 
interpretation of the commission? We aver that 
they do not. They themselves must admit, and 
have admitted, that they do not. Campbell sadly 
tells us that not one-tenth part of those immersed 
by him and his associates can enter the kingdom 
of heaven. Why? Because their after-lives have 
shown that they had no real faith. Then, in nine 
eases out of ten, according to his own doctrine and 
concessions, his baptisms are but violations of 
Christas commands and a profanation of God’s 
holy sacrament. Nine times out of ten his efforts 
to keep his interpretation of the commission have 
failed. And every one who attempts it must fail. 
The apostles and inspired preachers at the begin¬ 
ning of the Christian Church failed. They bap¬ 
tized Simon Magus, and it afterward turned out 
that he had neither part nor lot in the matter. 
They baptized Ananias and Sapphira, and others 
who afterward showed that they had no faith. 
Then,, if Baptist interpretation is to stand, they 
were mere violators of their Lord’s command, 
with all their inspiration! Man cannot see the 
heart; he cannot know what is in his brother. 
He may think he has credible evidence of faith 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. • 313 

or of a hopeful approach to it; and on that ground 
the Baptist proceeds to baptize. We do not say 
that he is wrong in this. It is all that we can 
ask. It is all that Christ meant that we should 
require. But we declare and hold that we have 
every whit as much ground to believe and hope 
that the children of believers will grow up pious 
as that upon which the Baptist proceeds with his 
believer’s baptism/’ as he, with a flourish, calls it. 

Dr. Baker says, ^‘Some years since, the assertion 
having been made that the children of the pious 
were no better than others, an investigation was 
made; and, the families within a certain district 
having been divided into three classes,—those in 
which both parents Tvere professedly pious, those 
in which only one parent was a professor, and 
those in which neither parent made any preten¬ 
sions to religion,—it was ascertained that of the 
children over ten years of age, in the first class, 
two-thirds were hopefully pious; and, in the second 
class, about one-third.” (Sermons, 1st ser. p. 204.) 
It is also asserted with confidence, of a Pedo- 
baptist denomination famous for its spirituality 
and missionary fervor, that ‘‘not one of ten of its 
members can remember the period when he began 
to be pious,’'—an indication most gratifying as to 
the proportion of pious among the children of 
their members. Nay, God himself says, “Train 
up a child in the way he should go, and when he is 
old he will 7wt depart from it.” (Prov. xxii. 6.) All 
that is necessary, then, for an infant to make it 
the child of God is to train it right. If parents 
will only “bring it up in the nurture and admoni- 
27 


314 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


tion of the Lord/^ its spiritual character is vouched 
for by God himself. And this they are required 
to profess and promise before we can baptize their 
children. Profession and promise is all that Bap¬ 
tists deem necessary. So that, all taken together, 
we have full as much ground to hoj^e that we are 
conferring baptism upon believers only when we 
thus baptize our babes, as Baptists have for their 
vaunted‘‘believer’s baptism.” Taking their own 
view of the commission in this particular, we 
challenge them to the proof that we come any 
further short of it than they themselves. 

But there is another and more serious aspect 
of the Baptist argument on the commission, which 
shows that they do most sadly wrest God’s holy 
word. If this quotation from Mark excludes in¬ 
fants from baptism, it at the same time, and with 
the same force, excludes them from salvation and 
makes “another gospel” necessary to bring them 
to heaven. If they dare not be baptized because 
they do not exercise personal faith, then, accord¬ 
ing to the same record, they must be damned for 
the same reason. If this commission serves to 
prohibit their baptism, it must serve also to damn 
them if they should die before arriving at years 
of discretion. The only way in which Baptists 
can escape the monstrous conclusion to which 
their logic on this passage drives them is to pro¬ 
vide a different gospel for children than for men. 
After what Paul has said upon the subject of 
“another gospel,” we would hardly suppose it 
possible for any one to think seriously of such a 
thing. “ Though we, or an angel from heaven,” 


INFANT BAPTISM—THE COMMISSION. 


315 


says he, preach any other gospel unto you than 
that which we have preached unto you, let him he 
accursed” (Gal. i. 8, 9.) And yet the logic of our 
Baptist friends has driven them to admit ^‘another 
gospel” as necessary to keep departed babes out 
of hell! Hear them. 

Mr. Ewing, on Mark xvi. 16, says, ^^From this 
text some infer that a person must actually be¬ 
lieve, else he cannot be baptized. With as much 
reason they might infer that a person must 
actually believe, else he cannot be saved.” To 
this the most learned Baptist critic replies, ‘‘ Cer¬ 
tainly : if there were no way of saving children hut hy 
the gospel^ this conclusion would he inevitable. The 
gospel saves none hut hy faith. The gospel has no¬ 
thing to do with infants. By the gospel' no infant 
CAN BE saved. Infants who enter heaven must 
be regenerated, but not by the gospel. The man 
who would preach infant salvation out of the 
apostolic commission, or attempt to prove that the 
commission may be explained so as to include 
IT, I SHOULD GAINSAY, on the saiiie ground on 
which I resist the attempts to include in it infant 
baptism.” (P. 173.) “ Infants are not saved by 

the new covenant, and therefore cannot bo con¬ 
nected with it in any view which represents them 
as interested in it. It is a vulgar mistake of theo¬ 
logians to consider that if infants are saved they 
must be saved by the new covenant. . . . Were it 
true that infants could not he saved hut hy this cove¬ 
nant, none of them would he saved.” (Pp. 215, 216.) 
Dr. Fuller takes the same ground,—as all consistent 
with the Baptist interpretation must,—that ‘‘/n 


316 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


fants are neither saved nor baptized under the com* 
mission.” (P. 116.) The adoption of the one 
position carries with it the other. If infants can¬ 
not be baptized under this commission, they can¬ 
not be saved under it. Then how are they saved? 
The answer from the Baptist champions is, By 
another covenant, — by another gospel.” There is 
no other alternative. And, as there is no other 
gospel, and cannot be another, the Baptist reason¬ 
ing on this point at once cuts olf salvation from 
our dying babes, and writes upon every infant’s 
tomb, “Lost!—Lost!—Lost!” What, then, be¬ 
comes of the Savior’s precious words?—“Suffer 
little children, and forbid them not, to come unto 
me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Alas! 
alas! their meaning is gone, and our little ones 
whom we committed to the ground “are perished.” 

One of three things, therefore, must be true. 
First, infants are reached by the commission, and 
may and ought to be baptized, so far as they are 
thereby being put into the position of learners in 
Christ; or, second, there must be another and 
different gospel for them than for adults; or, third, 
all who die in infancy are forever lost. The reader 
is to judge which is the most agreeable to reason. 
Scripture, and common sense. We have no fears 
as to the result of an unbiased judgment in the 
case. The great and only argument which Bap¬ 
tists have produced against the baptizing of in¬ 
fants drops asunder like flax at the touch of flame. 
It quite dissolves before an intelligent examination 
of the truth. The charge of “ damnable heresy” 
rebounds upon the heads of those who make it. 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 817 


CHAPTEE XXIII. 

THE RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM—AN 
ARGUMENT FOR THEIR BAPTISM. 

We think it has now been shown that there is 
nothing in the commission which Christ has given 
to his Church, which, by any tenable system of 
interpretation, can be made to exclude the infants 
of believers from baptism. And if the commission 
does not exclude them it includes them; and it is 
Christ’s will that they should be baptized. This 
ought to be enough to satisfy any one not hope¬ 
lessly committed to a sectarian cause. It quite 
disposes of the only show of argument which our 
Baptist friends, in all their zeal, have been able to 
present. But we propose now to present the 
cause of infant baptism in much deeper relations 
than those of the mere naked letter of Scripture, 
and to show that it is seated in the very heart and 
life of Christianity. 

There is such a thing as a kingdom of grace,—a 
plan or economy of divine operations by which 
God has been moving since the foundation of the 
world to redeem and renew poor lallen humanity. 
This kingdom is the centre and controlling princi¬ 
ple of all providence, all history, and all Scripture. 
It began with the gracious purposes and promises 
27 * 


318 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


of God, and is to reach its consummation in the 
ultimate completion, glor}^, and rest of the Church 
in the heavenly state. It is a grand and wonder¬ 
ful administration, which centres in and goes out 
from Christ in his character of Mediator between 
God and an apostate world. It also comprehends 
all of the human race, of every age and of every 
class, who are recovered from the fall, made the 
sons of God by adopting love, or in any way 
brought from the ruins of sin to the joys and 
honors of ultimate salvation. These are sublime 
propositions, which compass the whole spirit, aim, 
and meaning of Providence and revelation. They 
present the sum of all God’s merciful dealings with 
our world. No man can deny them and be a 
Christian. 

Now, it is equally clear that this divine and 
blessed economy has a visible, tangible, and out¬ 
ward existence in our world. It stands connected 
with external manifestations, signs, agencies, and 
administrations, which, in the aggregate, we are 
accustomed to call the Church. These external 
signs and forms have not always been exactly the 
same. God has varied them to suit the condition 
of humanity in its different eras of growth and 
spiritual development. Dispensations change, but 
it is ever the same gracious kingdom and the 
same glorious Church; just as a nation or empire 
may modify its laws or change its administrations 
and yet remain the same body-politic. God has 
but one Church, one remedial kingdom, from the 
beginning on forever. 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 319 

I. TVe lay it down, then, as a plain and obvious 
truth, that, if God has such a kingdom, and has 
connected it with certain outward ritual signs, all 
who are savingly reached by it or are members 
of it, unless excluded by specific law, must be 
equally entitled to those ritual signs, and no man 
has any right to withhold them. The man in all 
respects a citizen of our country is entitled to 
every thing in which citizenship is signified or 
expressed, except where there is specific law dis¬ 
abling him as to some of the superior ofiices. 
This is a clear principle, recognized and approved 
in all society, and which must hold good in the 
kingdom of God as well as in the states of earth. 
To allow one to be altogether a child of grace and 
a participant in the immunities of redemption, 
and yet to deny to it the signals and badges and 
tokens of its accepted estate, is a piece of gross 
injustice and absurdity. It is to affirm and deny 
at the same time. It is a proceeding which all 
right reason and common sense must at once con- 
demn. 

II. We furthermore affirm, and hold ourselves 
in readiness to prove, that our infants are as com¬ 
pletely reached and embraced by the remedial 
kingdom as any adults, so that if they should die 
in infancy they are as truly among the saved as 
those who leave the world after the longest lives 
of saintship. We suppose that Baptists and Chris¬ 
tians generally will readily admit this. Dr. Fuller 
says, ‘‘Our Pedobaptist brethren and ourselves 
have no controversy about the salvation of infants. 


320 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


If any man believes that infants, with or without 
water, will be damned, I have nothing to say to 
that man.^' (P. 108.) Three evangelists have told 
us that our Savior took up little, young, infant 
children in his arms and said, such is the 
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN;” that is, the kingdom of 
God is made up of them and all like them. Some 
have undertaken to say that this declaration of 
the Lord does not include children, but refers only 
to such as are like them. But, if this passage does 
not include children, heaven does not include them. 
There can be no salvation apart from the kingdom 
of God and heaven. And if this saying does not 
put our babes in the kingdom of God, it inevitably 
puts them in hell. There is no other alternative. 
Infants, therefore, are included in the remedial 
kingdom, or they are not included in the hopes 
and promises of heaven, and those of them ‘‘which 
are fallen asleep are perished.” 

III. It is also a scriptural truth, not to be 
disputed, that, under the dispensation now in 
force, baptism is the divinely appointed token and 
sacrament of Christian discipleship,—the solemn 
rite in which the remedial kingdom comes to men 
and men come into visible relationship with the 
kingdom of God. It is the great christening ordi¬ 
nance, without which no one can be regarded as 
truly a Christian. Jesus has said. Make disciples 
of the nations, baptizing them” There is, then, no 
complete discipleship, no proper relation to the 
divine kingdom, where there is no baptism. It is 
by baptism that the Savior himself was Cliristed, 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 821 

anoioted, and visibly installed into the great officG 
of mediatorship. He performed not one single 
function of his mediatorial office until he was bap¬ 
tized. It was by that service that he was officially 
made the Christ; and it is by the same sort of 
service that those who are hie become officially 
identified with his Christhood and participants in 
the saving benefits of his administrations. This 
is God’s law upon the subject. Whosoever, then, 
is unfit for baptism, is unfit for salvation, unfit to 
be a partaker of his renewing and sanctifying 
mercies. Disqualification for baptism is disquali¬ 
fication for the kingdom; for baptism is the sign 
and sacrament of saving relation to that kingdom. 

Baptists greatly mistake the nature and design 
of this ordinance when they present it as the 
mere act of a believing man, by which he evinces 
liis obedience and joins himself to the visible 
Church. Baptism is an act which goes out from 
Christ,—a divine motion toward the sinner. Jesus 
says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen 
you.” All faith has something underlying it 
which is altogether of God. Salvation comes to 
us first; and if any man is a believer it is because 
God first came to him and enabled him to believe. 
Faith is built upon something anterior to itself. It 
is the mere yielding and bending of the soul to the 
movings of divine grace toward it. The king¬ 
dom must come to us before we can come to the 
kingdom. And what baptism signifies is not so 
much our yielding or believing, as God’s saving 
grace availing for our souls. It is the token of 
divine favor and blessing,—the sign of what God 


822 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


does, rather than -what we do. I^ow, if no man 
resisted the movings of divine grace which under¬ 
lie all faith, no man would fail of salvation. So 
long as there is not positive unbelief and dis¬ 
obedience, grace savingly applies. It is in this 
way that salvation comes to the infant world. 
And, wherever redeeming grace avails, baptism is 
the appointed token, and signal, and seal of the 
fact. It is a sort of magna charta from God, 
outwardly signifying, conferring, guaranteeing, 
and sealing the rights, immunities, and blessings 
of his remedial kingdom to all entitled to them. 
This is a grant which must come anterior to faith. 
It is upon this that faith is built. It is a grant 
which looks to the awakening of faith and accept¬ 
ance on our part. Unbelief and disobedience may 
reject the grant and vitiate the covenant; but, 
until there is positive unbelief and rejection of the 
offered grace of the gospel, that grant or cove¬ 
nant is effective and holds good unto salvation. 

IV. Now, then, as children are reached by 
God’s saving grace and are real participants in 
the blessings of the remedial kingdom, and as bap¬ 
tism is at least the outward token of the motions 
and applications of that saving grace, without a 
specific warrant from God himself, to deny bap¬ 
tism to children, is either to deny children a place 
in the divine kingdom, or to disconnect baptism 
from that from which alone it derives its signifi¬ 
cance and life and to which God himself has 
joined it. In either case we contradict plain 
Scripture and fact. So that from the deepest 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 323 

heart and life of Christianity we are called upon 
to baptize infants as well as adults. 

We will endeavor to present this thought in 
other forms. Baptism is the sacrament of re¬ 
generation; that is, it is a visible rite which 
God has connected with the saving operations of 
his grace in Christ Jesus. It is an outward sign 
coupled with an invisible grace. Where the in¬ 
visible grace is, there this sign belongs. Infants 
are partakers of this invisible grace: such is 

the kingdom.” They are among the saved by the 
remedial scheme set forth in Christ Jesus. To 
them, therefore, belongs also the sign which God 
has instituted to accompany this invisible grace. 
If they are incompetent to receive the outward 
sign, they are still more incompetent to receive 
the invisible and saving mercy signified; and so, 

, if they are not fit to be baptized, they are incapa¬ 
ble of salvation, and, dying in childhood, must 
be lost. 

Baptists agree tnat infants must be regenerated 
in order to enter heaven,—that they must become 
subjects of the saving efficacy of the remedial 
kingdom. Dr. Carson says, ^‘Infants who enter 
heaven must be regenerated. . . . Infants must 
be sanctified.(P. 173.) Why, then, deny them 
the sacrament of regeneration,—-the token which 
marks and indicates that sanctification? If the}^ 
have the thing, we have no right to withhold 
God’s appointed sign or seal of that thing. 

Every informed Christian will admit that the 
mediatorial constitution is not to be bounded in 
its capacity or force by any merely chronological 


824 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


or geographical lines in the history of the race, 
allowing it to be efficacious only for the people of 
this or that country or this or that period. Such 
a thought would be exceedingly repugnant to 
every Christian sense and feeling. But it cer¬ 
tainly is no less offensive and abhorrent to limit or 
bound the force of this salvation by a line sunder¬ 
ing infancy and childhood from riper age, and to 
make it of real effect on one side of this line only 
and not on the other. Humanity is not merely 
our mature life, but all the stages through which 
we reach maturity. It includes infancy and child¬ 
hood as a necessary part of its constitution. A 
large proportion of it exists always under this 
form; and nearly one-half of it is cut off by death 
before it reaches maturity. Now, the question is 
not simply, Can such infants be saved if they should 
happen to die? but, Is there no real room for them, 
living or dying, in the concrete mystery of the 
new creation, in the communion of Christ’s media¬ 
torial life, in the efficacy of God’s remedial king¬ 
dom, in the bosom of the one holy, catholic 
Church? Hoes the nature of the second Adam 
and of the regenerative scheme going out from 
him take in and reach only one-half of humanity 
while it wholly excludes the other? Such an 
imagination is worse than foolish. It would take 
from Christ his claim to be a universal Savior, 
and from redemj)tion its commensurateness with 
the fall. Christ must be coextensive in his king¬ 
dom with universal humanity from infancy to 
old age as well as with its mere numerical expan¬ 
sion. Paul teaches qs that the second Adam, in 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 325 

his saving power, is more than commensurate 
with the ruin of the first. (Eom. v. 12-21.) And, 
as infants were embraced by the law of sin and 
death, it demands the most solid proofs to show 
that they are shut out from the law of the spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus. No one is prepared to 
deny the capability of infants for salvation; and 
no one is prepared to show that infants are not 
partakers of the common corruption which has 
resulted from the fall. Christianity, then, must 
have a place for them. The remedial kingdom 
must reach them. Saving grace must somehow 
avail for them. And, as Christ and heaven stretch 
out their arms to our babes and say, ^^Let them 
come: of such is the kingdom,” nothing short of an 
express and pointed “ thus saith the Lord’’ will 
warrant any man to rise up and say that the sign 
and seal of such gracious relations does not be¬ 
long to them. 

Infants are a part of Christ’s mystical body. 
They are an integral portion of that humanity for 
Avhich his mediation avails. They are redeemed 
by his blood. They are among the purchases of 
his death. Until they, by unbelief and disobe¬ 
dience, reject him, they are his. Eedemption is 
efficacious for them. The kingdom of God is 
of them and others like them. If this is not true, 
there is no hope for them. Just as surely, then, 
"as God has linked baptism to the effectual appli¬ 
cation of saving grace, to signify and seal it, and 
just as certainly as it is Christ’s appointed badge 
for those who are partakers of his healing and 
saving life-power, it is to be administered to 
28 


326 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


infants, and the deepest and most vital constitu¬ 
tion of Christianity is touched and violated by 
excluding them from it. Indeed, to us there 
seems to be but this one alternative,—that infants 
are entitled to baptism, or else they must perish; 
—not that baptism alone can save them, but for 
the reason that any thing which incapacitates 
them for baptism must at the same time incapaci¬ 
tate them for salvation. As has been remarked 
by an able Eevievv, ^^If children may not bo 
baptized, they cannot in any way be gathered 
into the bosom of the Church. Then it cannot bo 
said that Christ has room for them at present in 
his arms His grace may have regard to them pros¬ 
pectively; but where they are just now, by the 
fearful disabilities of childhood, it cannot reach 
them or touch them in the way of help. Their 
only hope is in the uncovenanted mercies of God 
and his power at pleasure to save without Christ. 
They are disqualified constitutionally for Christian 
salvation. On Baptist premises we see no escape 
from this conclusion.’’ 

It may be said, however, that this is too round¬ 
about and inferential a way to find authority for 
infant baptism. But Dr. Carson agrees that a 
solid and legitimate inference following from clear 
and expressed scriptural principles is just as 
authoritative as the explicit v^ords of inspiration. 
Nay, this perpetual harping upon the mere letter 
of the law, which insists that a case is not pro¬ 
vided for unless set forth in express terms, as 
remarked in the Eeview above quoted, is a mon¬ 
strous falsehood, as well as a miserable Jewish 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM, 327 

pedantry. Christianity has a life and constitution 
of its own, in the bosom of which only, and by 
the power of which alone, the true sense of the 
Bible can be fairly understood; and in this view 
it is that the practice of infant baptism by the 
universal Church from the beginning comes to 
its full significance and weight. We not only 
infer it from the authority of express precept and 
example going before, in the age of the apostles, 
but we see in it also the very soul and spirit of 
Christianity itself, actualizing and expounding in 
a living way the sense of its own word. If it 
could be clearly made out that the household 
baptisms of the New Testament included no in¬ 
fants,—nay, if it were certain that the Church had 
no apostolical rule whatever in the case, but had 
gradually settled here into her own rule,—we 
should hold this still to be of truly divine author- 
it}^, and the baptism of infants of necessary Chris¬ 
tian obligation, as the only proper sense and 
meaning of the New Testament institution inter¬ 
preted thus to its full depth by the Christian life 
itself.^’ 

Y. But we propose to bring the matter a step 
nearer. We have argued, and, we thiuk, conclu¬ 
sively, that, as the remedial kingdom avails for 
infants, and as baptism is the appointed token or 
sign which is to accompany such effectual relation 
to Christ and his saving grace, infants are to be 
baptized. We will now undertake to show that 
up to the Christian ‘^reformation/' by express 


828 THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

authority of God, the token or sign of his gracious 
covenant was administered to infants. 

Dr. Fuller says, ‘‘ It is monstrous to go into the 
Old Testament to see who are to be baptized.’^ 
But how does it happen that he saw nothing 
monstrous in going back to the old heathen to find 
out what baptism is? If Jewish ablutions and 
heathen classics are to be consulted to ascertain 
the mode of baptism, it certainly is quite legitimate 
to consult the old divine law of Church-member¬ 
ship to find out the proper subjects. And why not 
go back to the Old Testament ? Whatsoever 
things were written aforetime were w^ritten for 
our learning. The Old Testament was God’s 
kingdom just as really and truly as the New. It 
is one and the same olive-tree, from wdiich the 
Jews were broken off and the Gentiles grafted in. 
(See Romans xi. 6-24.) Whatever ceremonial 
changes and constitutional modifications may have 
been made by the Christian “reformation,” the 
spiritual corporation was the same. The pro¬ 
phets are the brethren of the apostles. The true 
member of the Jewish or patriarchal Church is a 
part of the same household in which the true 
Christian is found. The New is only a further 
completion of the Old. And if we can find an 
ancient law of God ordaining infant membership, 
it must be shown that that law has been authori¬ 
tatively repealed or changed, or it still remains to 
be observed,—at least, as to its spirit. 

The first form of the kingdom of God among 
men was the patriarchal, which extended from 
Adam to Abraham. Under that system the family 


RELATIOr^S OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 329 

was the Church and the father the priest. God 
then had no visible kingdom but that which existed 
in the domestic constitution. It was only in the 
household economy, and in what appertained to its 
healthful and vigorous condition, that men came 
into visible relations to the divine kingdom in those 
days. It was God’s own arrangement. That it 
included children is infallibly certain ‘ otherwise 
the race itself must have ceased. Here, then, we 
have children in the Church, and as much con¬ 
nected with the kingdom of God as their grown 
brothers or their fathers,/or more than two thousand 
years. 

. The next form of the divine kingdom was that 
which held from the calling of Abraham to Moses. 
This connected the visible Church with a particular 
race of people, the outward mark of which was 
circumcision. All Abraham’s descendants in the 
line of Isaac and Jacob, and all others who became 
permanently identified with that race, having 
received the rite of circumcision, constituted God's 
visible kingdom, than which he had in that period 
no other kingdom among men. Did it include 
infants? Bead Genesis xvii. :—^^And God said 
unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant, thou, 
and thy seed after thee in their generations. This 
is my covenant, which ye shall keep between me 
and you, and thy seed after thee : every man-child 
among you shall be circumcised ] and it shall be a 
token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And 
he that is eight days old shall he circumcised among 
you.” 

Here, then, is a divine law, appointing the cir- 
28 -^ 


330 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


cumcision of infants as parties to God's gracious 
covenant and as members in his Chureh as it then 
existed. This same law was continued through 
the Mosaic economy down to the time of Christ 
himself From the very beginning of the world, 
therefore, God has admitted children to his visible 
kingdom, and appointed that they should receive 
the signs and tokens of the same. Let Baptists 
show us when and where there has ever been an 
abrogation of the spirit of these regulations, and 
we will submit without another word. If this law 
for the recognition of infant membership has ever 
been annulled, the record of it can be found, and 
may be produced. But, until that record is pro¬ 
duced, we are bound to receive it as God’s own 
positive law that our infant children are not to be 
denied the token of his covenant. 

To escape the force of this argument, at once so 
clear and satisfactory. Dr. Fuller suggests that 
^‘circumcision was no seal of spiritual blessings,” 
and that it referred to mere temporal immunities. 
In this he differs from the holy Apostle Paul. We 
would think “ the righteousness which is of faith” 
a spiritual blessing; and Paul says that Abraham 
“received the sign of circumcision] a seal of the 
RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH.” (Rom. iii. 11.) We 
would also think God’s engagement to be a God to 
him, and to his seed after him, involved something 
of spiritual blessings; but in that very covenant 
cireumcision is explicitly appointed and ordained 
as its token and seal. Dr. Carson is constrained 
to admit that “circumcision and baptism corres¬ 
pond in meaning,” and that relate to the 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 331 

removal of sin, the one by cutting, the other by 
■washing.’' (P. 229.) Is the removal of sin no 
spiritual blessing? Nay, if there was no spiritual 
blessing connected with the covenant of which 
circumcision was the token, there was nothing 
spiritual in the Old Testament, or in the only king¬ 
dom which God had upon earth up to the time 
when the Word was made flesh.” So extraordi¬ 
nary and “ monstrous” a doctrine cannot be enter¬ 
tained for one moment. It is a desperate resort to 
exclude children from the Church. 

But our Baptist doctors argue that the circum¬ 
cision of Jewish children could have had no refer¬ 
ence to spiritual blessings, or to any relation to the 
kingdom of God, because ^‘infants cannot have 
faith.” They must then assume that infants are 
infidels, and that they dare not be reckoned with 
the Church-community,—which we have shown 
to be contrary to all reason and Scripture-facts. 
Nay, to deny the capacity of our infants to receive 
spiritual blessings or to stand in full connection 
with the divine kingdom, is not only to gainsay 
an angel from heaven,” but to gainsay the Son of 
God himself We read in the Gospels that ‘Gittle 
children,” “young children,” ^^brephce — new-born 
babes” —were brought to him, that he should put 
his hands on them and pray; and his disciples 
rebuked them. Perhaps they thought with our 
Baptist friends that “the gospel has nothing to do 
with infants.” But the Savior was ^^much dis- 
pleased'^ at their conduct, and said, “Sufter little 
children, and forbid them not, to come unto me:” 
Why? Because of such is the kingdom of 


332 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


HEAVEN.’’ (Matt. xix. 13, 14.) Now, let men UPgue 
as they please, and adopt what principles of inter¬ 
pretation may suit them best, and sneer at the 
incapacities of children as the necessities of their 
creed may require i the Son of God here assigns to 
infants an interest in his gospel and a relation to 
his kingdom as real, close, and effective as can be 
claimed for any adult, whether on earth or in 
heaven. ‘‘Of such is the kingdom.” There it 
stands, written of God, clear as the light, firm as 
the world, true as the heart of Jesus. With such 
relations to the kingdom and covenant, circum¬ 
cision in the case of infants must take a meaning 
quite as deep and spiritual as that allowed to it iil 
the case of Abraham himself. 

We will not pursue our Baptist friends into their 
labju’inthine disquisitions upon cove7iants. We will 
simply remark, that if the covenant of which cir¬ 
cumcision was the token was in no way a spiritual 
covenant, and did not embrace the Church, we 
challenge and defy our recusants to find and show 
any visible Church on earth anterior to the Savior’s 
advent; and that the formal renewal of that cove¬ 
nant in the 29th of Deuteronomy demonstrates 
its spiritual character, including Israel’s “little 
ones” along with their parents as parties to the 
hi(^h and solemn eimao-ements. 

o o o 

Thus, then, from the foundation of the world 
until the institution of Christianity, the uniform 
and positive law of God was that infants stood in 
the same relation to the kingdom and covenant of 
God with their parents, and that the sign and 
token of the same was to be given to them as early 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 333 

as the eighth day after their birth. We have found 
the law putting infants in the Church and connect¬ 
ing them visibly and sacramentally with the divine 
kingdom. It now devolves upon our opponents to 
find the law which puts them out. If they cannot 
produce such a law, we are certainly bound in all 
reason and conscience to consider them as sustain¬ 
ing the same relations to the kingdom and its 
visible token under the Christian economy which 
God himself gave them in all the dispensations 
preceding it. 

YI. ^^^ay, we go still further. We will produce 
a passage from the lips of Jesus, which shows that, 
under the gospel, there is such a thing as the re¬ 
ception of the kingdom on the part of little chil¬ 
dren. We read in Mark x. 13-15, ‘^They brought 
jmung children unto him, and his disciples rebuked 
them that brought them. But when Jesus saw it 
he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer 
the little children to come unto wie, and forbid them 
not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily 1 
say u7ito you, Whosoever shall not receive the king¬ 
dom OF God as a little child, he shall not enter 
therein” 

We observe, then, that infants may come to 
Christ. He himself says, let them come. It is 
therefore possible for them to come. 

It is useless for Baptists to suggest philosophical 
objections. Christ says it; and his words are not 
to be revised and amended by the philosophies of 
ignorant and erring men. There is such a thing as 
the coming of babes to Jesus. This is a nail in a 


334 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED 


sure place/^ which must hold even to the day of 
doom. ^^That children are capable of being 
brought to Christ and blessed by him is clearly 
established by this passage/’ says Mr. Carson him¬ 
self. And so Alexander Campbell:—^‘Whatever 
the character of these little children may have 
been, they came to him.” We will not press the 
fact that the phrase coming to Christ signifies what¬ 
ever is implied in becoming a Christian; and so 
baptism also. If this is the meaning to be attached 
to it in this place, our case is made out,—that 
infants are capable of discipleship, and are there¬ 
fore to be christened by baptism. But if this is 
not to be taken as its import in this connection, it 
must still express a relation to and an interest in 
Christ which must needs identify them wdth the 
Church, and so entitle them to the sign and seal 
of such relationship. 

But the point which we desire more particularly 
to present is in the latter part of this remarkable 
text. Three things are here asserted: first, that 
infants are receivers of the kingdom of God; 
second, that they so completely receive the king¬ 
dom of God as to be models for all receivers of it; 
and, third, that adults must receive it just the 
same as little children, or they never can enter 
into it. “Whosoever shall not receive the king¬ 
dom of God AS A LITTLE CHILD [receives it], he shall 
not enter therein. . . . Except ye be converted and 
become as little children, ye shall not enter into 
the kingdom of heaven.” 

How, then, do little children receive the king¬ 
dom of God? That they do receive it, the Son of 


RELATIONS OF INFANTS TO THE KINGDOM. 335 

God is witness. How do they receive it? Can any 
one be said to receive the kingdom of God under 
the gospel without at the same time being a 
proper subject for baptism ? Hay, further: can any 
one receive the kingdom of God at all, in any 
visible and tangible respect, without being bap¬ 
tized? As the Church was constituted under the 
old dispensation, the reception of the kingdom 
and promise was linked to circumcision; and no 
male infant could, in strict language, be said to 
have received the kingdom until circumcision was 
lierformed. The reception of the kingdom now 
is just as intimately linked with baptism. ‘‘Ex¬ 
cept a man be born of water and of the Spirity 
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” are 
Christ’s own words. In the certain fact, then, 
attested as it is by the Son of God, that infants 
under the gospel are receivers of the kingdom, 
and, as such, the models of all effectual re¬ 
ceptions of the kingdom, their baptism is neces¬ 
sarily implied. 

YII. Hay, more: the presentations made in point¬ 
ing to children in their reception of the kingdom 
as the models according to which alone the king¬ 
dom can be effectually received carry with them 
this certain implication:—that, unless every bap¬ 
tism IS ESSENTIALLY AN INFANT BAPTISM, IT IS NO 
AVAILING BAPTISM AT ALL. The kingdom must 
be received as little children receive it; the man 
’ must be converted and become as a little child, or 
the kingdom of God is not for him. Dr. Carson 
himself admits that “every believer must be as a 


836 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


little child.All unregenerated adults must undo 
their whole lives, and return again to infancy to 
start afresh on the same level with babes, to the 
same absence of unbelief, unteachableness, and dis¬ 
obedience with which an infant is brought to the 
font, or there can be no availing baptism and no 
salvation. 

Let the reader weigh these thoughts; let him 
consider how the Lord of the Church here requires 
all baptisms to be essentially infant baptisms; let 
him grasp what is implied in a right reception of 
the kingdom of God, the model of which Christ 
himself finds in little children; and how he can 
rid himself of the conclusion that our infants are 
proper subjects of Christian baptism we are at a 
loss to see. Shall the lips of Infinite Wisdom pro¬ 
nounce them possessed of all that is demanded in 
a proper reception of the kingdom on the part of 
adults, and yet we reject them as unfit to receive 
the kingdom themselves? Shall Jesus press them 
to his loving heart, declaring that ‘‘of such is the 
kingdom of God,” and we refuse to them his own 
appointed sign of acceptance and token of his 
saving mercy? Shall the Son of God bid them 
welcome to his arms and blessing as his choicest 
jewels, and the eternal heavens stand open to 
admit them, and we undertake to say that they 
are unfit to be rated even with his weakest and 
frailest disciples? Before we will give consent to 
a system so discordant with the words and heart 
of the blessed Savior, let this right hand forget 
her cunning, and this tongue cleaye to fhe roof of 
the mouth which contains it! 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


337 


Kow, honestly and candidly taking together 
this whole subject of the relation of our babes to 
the remedial kingdom, its signs and tokens under 
former dispensations, and the positive declarations 
of its King with children in his arms, we regard it 
as impossible to doubt the divinity of infant bap¬ 
tism, or to question the propriety of the common 
Church-practice, from the beginning until now, of 
administering this holy sacrament to all who can 
justly be regarded as in the position of learners in 
Jesus, including our babes as well as all who by 
repentance and conversion become like thein. 


CIIAPTEK XXIV. 

• INFANT BAPTISM PRACTICED BY THE APOSTLES. 

We have now shown that infant baptism is no 
sin; that it is not prohibited by the commission; 
and that the relation of our children to the king¬ 
dom of God implies and demands it. Certainly, 
if infants are to be numbered with Christ’s re¬ 
deemed, and are so far the subjects of gospel 
grace as to be saved, and are possessed of qualities 
rendering them in the Savior’s eyes the very 
models of what disciples of Christ must be, they 
are to be rated among those who are to receive 
the marks, signs, and acknowledgments of disciple- 
ship, and are to be baptized. In all the length 
and breadth of the inspired volume there is not 
29 



338 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


one syllable, in the form of command, precept, 
explanation, caution, or example, to prevent the 
solemn charge to make disciples of all nations, 
from extending to little hahes as well as to men in 
the maturity of life. And when we consider that 
this charge was given to Jews, with whom it was 
a divinely appointed thing in religious matters to 
extend to children the same rites and ordinances 
enjoyed by themselves,—that it was delivered to 
those very men whom its Author rebuked in so 
much displeasure when in a mistaken zeal they 
sought to prevent children from being brought to 
him,—and that he had in the most explicit and 
impressive manner previously referred to little 
children as model subjects of his kingdom,—the 
evidence is perfectly conclusive that when he said 
^^all nations'’ he meant what he said, and that it is 
his will that all the constituents of a nation that 
can by any means be made learners in him should 
be regarded as rightful subjects of baptism. So 
that it is not without solid foundation that the 
distinguished Danish Dr. Martinsen has said, “The 
more infant baptism prevails in the world, the 
more are the words of the Lord fulfilled, that the 
nations should be made disciples by baptism and 
instruction.’^ 

But, if all this does not satisfy the reader that 
infants are among the proper subjects of baptism, 
we have another and more direct sort of argument, 
which will admit of no evasion. 

All must agree that the inspired apostles under¬ 
stood the scope and nature of the great commis¬ 
sion Avhich the ascending Savior delivered to them, 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


339 


and that their practice under that command must 
be taken as a conclusive and final explanation of 
what the Savior meant. If they baptized child¬ 
ren, we are bound to conclude that Christ meant 
that children should be baptized, and that we also 
ought to see to it that their baptism be not 
neglected. 

The question, then, arises. Did the apostles 
BAPTIZE LITTLE CHILDREN? As we expect to be 
judged by the all-knowing God, we believe that 
they did, and will now proceed to give what we 
regard as conclusive evidence of the fact. 

I. There is not a single instance in all the New 
Testament in which any one wdio had grown up 
from childhood as a member of a Christian house¬ 
hold was ever baptized in adult life. Upon this 
point we will give the substance of Professor Wil¬ 
son’s acute observations. Baptists affirm that 
there is no instance of infant baptism furnished in 
Scripture. We shall examine that matter more 
at length presently. What we propose here to 
insist on is, that no adult baptism^ in the sense in 
which it is repudiated by us and maintained as a 
distinctive tenet by oui recusants, can he shown in 
the word of God. 

Let us not be misunderstood. The terms adult 
baptism are used with two different applications; 
one denoting the ordinance as administered to a 
Christian convert from another faith or a heathen 
condition, the other embracing onl}^ the case of 
children who have grown up under Christian 
training but are denied baptism except in case of 


340 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


a personal profession of faith in Christ. Now, as 
to the baptism of a convert from the Jewish re¬ 
ligion, or from heathenism, or from the unin¬ 
structed and ungodly world, there is no ditference 
between us and Baptists. We all contend that 
such a one must be baptized. It presents no dis¬ 
tinctive feature of the Baptist system any more 
than of ours. It is therefore to be cancelled, as a 
common quantity, arguing nothing on either side. 
As to those scriptural instances on which Baptists 
lean so confidently for an exclusively adult bap¬ 
tism, we are prepared to show that, without a 
single exception, they were administered to con¬ 
verts from Judaism or idolatry. They present 
the common ground which we hold alike with our 
Baptist friends. What we affirm, then, is, that 
apart from these there is not a solitary example 
of adult baptism in the New Testament. If there 
be such an instance, the industry of Baptists can 
produce it. We challenge them to do so. And until 
they do so, they remain in the unenviable position 
of making that a distinctive feature of Christianity 
which puts the children of Christian parent¬ 
age and training on a ievel with Pharisees, idola¬ 
ters, and worldlings, and deals with them in a way 
which has no parallel in the word of God, or in 
all the transactions of his inspired servants. 

Now, the utter silence of the Scriptures as to 
any adult baptisms of such as have grown up in 
the Church under all the influences of Chris¬ 
tianity from early childhood, is a matter of no 
small importance. It is useless for Baptists to 
say that the period of Scripture history is too 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


S41 


short to produce such instances. It extends over 
from five to thirty years. If this was not time 
enough to produce them, they must be of very 
slow growth. If it was the custom of the apos¬ 
tolic age to withhold baptism from the , infant 
children of the multitudes of converts, and to let 
those children grow up sustaining the same rela¬ 
tion to the Church as the heathen, it must be 
regarded as veiy remarkable and unaccountable 
that not one instance can be found of the baptism 
of any of this large and interesting class in after¬ 
life. Either there were such adult baptisms or 
there were not. If there were, then the mere 
silence of Scripture is not to be held as disproving 
their existence, any more than the mere silence 
of Scripture could disprove the existence of infant 
baptism. But if there were no such cases, then 
the children in question must have been either 
baptized in infancy or altogether exempted from 
submission to the ordinance. We are reluctant 
in any case to rest an affirmative on the mere 
silence of a document; and yet the Baptist can 
show no better foundation for this distinctive 
feature of his system. With respect to infants, 
we do not undertake to stand upon such ground. 
We claim that the Scriptures do speak upon the 
subject, pointedly and clearly; but, as to the 
adult baptism of the children of believers, there is 
not a case of it in all the records of apostolic history. 
Baptists themselves have been forced to acknowl¬ 
edge this. ‘^I admit,’" says Eev. Baptist Noel, 
^Hhat there are no instances recorded in the New 
Testament where the persons baptized are said to 
29 ^^ 


842 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


be the children of believing parents.’^ (On Bap¬ 
tism, p. 232.) The absence, then, of any such 
case must be taken as a strong presumption that 
such children were baptized in infancy. (See 
Wilson on Inf. Bapt. chap, ix.) 

II. We can trace infant baptism back to the 
days of the apostles,—which demands the conclu¬ 
sion that it was performed with their sanction, 
if not with their own hands. 

It is certain, from their own testimony, that 
the apostles were at great pains to establish 
means of conveying their directions^ injunctions, or 
traditions to succeeding generations. Peter says, 
^‘I will endeavor that after my decease you 
make mention of these things,^^ and thereby per¬ 
petuate the remembrance of them. (2 Epistle i. 
15.) Paul says, “ The things which thou hast 
heard of me [dial purpose of instructing many 

witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, 
who shall be able to teach others also.^^ (2 Tim. ii. 
2.) With these facts before us, all must admit 
that the testimony of the men who lived near the 
apostolic age must be of very great weight in 
helping to decide what was apostolic practice. It 
is useless to argue a point so self-evident. Mr. 
Alexander Campbell agrees that the views and 
practices of those who were the cotemporaries or 
the pupils of the apostles and their immediate 
successors may be adduced as corroborating evi¬ 
dence of the truths taught and the practices 
enjoined by the apostles, and as such may bo 
cited.^^ 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


343 


It is also agreed, even by the most rabid railers 
against infant baptism, that this has been an 
established thing in all the great divisions of the 
Church since the fourth century. Augustine 
flourished at the conclusion of the fourth century, 
and his testimony is direct to the point that the 
baptizing of infants was then the common prac¬ 
tice, and that it was apostolica tradition —a thing 
derived from the apostles. His words are, “If 
any one do ask for divine authority in this mat¬ 
ter, that which the whole Church practices, and 
which has not been instituted by councils, but 
was ever in use, is very reasonably believed to be 
no other than a thing delivered [or ordered] by 
or from the apostles.'' (7)e Boipt. cont. Donat.) 

Chrysostom lived at the same time and left a 
similar testimony. A half-generation earlier lived 
Gregory Hazianzen, who heartily shames the mo¬ 
ther who hesitated to bring her child to be bap¬ 
tized because of its tender age, urging that “Han¬ 
nah consecrated Samuel to God before his birth 
and devoted him to the priesthood as soon as he 
was born," and that “so children should he baptized 
in their tenderest age, though having yet no idea of 
perdition or grace." About the year 250 there 
lived a certain minister by the name of Fidus, 
who was somewhat squeamish about baptizing 
new-born babes, because he was expected to kiss 
them after baptizing them. He therefore brought 
it before a council of sixty-six bishops to decide 
whether baptism, for the sake of decency, ought 
not to be denied to infants until after they were 
eight days old. The question shows at once that 


844 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


infant baptism was then the common practice, 
and the council, with the martyr Cyprian at its 
head, at once unanimously declared that “the 
mercy and grace of God are to be denied to none 
from the moment he is born,’^ and that, as bap¬ 
tism is not denied to the greatest offenders when 
they come to believe, so it certainly is not to be 
arbitrarily withheld from a new-born babe, which 
has no crimes. 

Origen was born in 185 and died in 254. He 
was a distinguished man and possessed many un¬ 
common advantages. His father, grandfather, 
and great-grandfather all were Christians. At 
the most moderate reckoning, his great-grand¬ 
father lived within twelve years of the death of 
Mark and about twenty years cotemporaneous 
Avith the Apostle John. For nearly a hundred 
years the Origen family had lived with the apos¬ 
tles and their immediate successors and the other 
“ faithful men,'’ some of whom must yet have been 
alive in Origen's time. He also traveled ex¬ 
tensively, visited various apostolic Churches, and 
resided in many of them, in order the most fully 
to inform himself respecting whatever accounts 
of Christ and his apostles were still preserved. 
And it is simply impossible, under such circum¬ 
stances, that the practice of the Church, derived 
from the apostles, in a matter of daily occurrence, 
could have been forgotten, or have suffered such a 
radical change, without his ha\ing been aware 
of it. Mr. Alexander Campbell says, “ Origen is 
a competent witness in any question of fact." 
What, then, is his testimony? It is that “ The 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


345 


Church RECEIVED FROM THE APOSTLES the injunction 
\traditio'\ to give baptism even to infants, ac¬ 
cording TO THE SAYING OF OUR LORD CONCERNING 
INFANTS.’' {Orig. in Rom. lib. 5, cap. 6, p. 543.) 
Again: in bis homily on Leviticus, he 'says. 

Whereas the baptism of the Church is given for 
the forgiveness of sins, infants also are, by the 
usage of the Church, baptized.” 

A little earlier than Origen lived Tertullian, 
who was the first opposer of infant baptism that 
has ever been heard of But his very opposition 
proves that it was a common thing in his day. He 
certainly would not have undertaken to wage war 
against a mere phantom. Ho sane man would 
preach reform in a thing that never existed. And 
yet, as early as the conclusion of the second 
century, within eighty years of the time of the 
apostles, we find him inveighing against the bap¬ 
tizing of infants as the great defect of the age, and 
therefore a custom as wide-spread as Christendom 
itself At that period men were still living who 
were born before the apostles all were dead. And 
how does it happen that in one lifetime from the 
apostles a practice which Baptists tell us is such 
a dreadful apostasy from the teachings of Jesus 
and the example of his inspired servants, should 
thus have established itself in every Church all 
over the Christian world ? If this was an innova¬ 
tion; if it was so contrary to apostolic injunction 
and example; if it was the introduction of such a 
dreadful scourge, at war with all the inculcations 
of the Son of God,—where were John the apostle, 
and Timothy and Titus, and the “faithful men/’ 


34a 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


able to teach others also? Where were Polycarp, 
and Irenseus, and Barnabas, and Hermas, that 
not one of them ever rose up to rebuke and ex¬ 
pose the delusion of those who would thus for¬ 
sake the commandment of God for an ordinance 
of man? Indeed, the very arguments which Ter- 
tullian employed against infant baptism show that 
he himself considered it impossible to deny its 
apostolic origin, and felt all the time that he was 
laboring to introduce a new practice. He believed 
that baptism was the washing away of sins; and 
his great argument was that it should be delayed 
until the periods of greater temptation had passed, 
lest by sinning after baptism there would be found 
no more remission. This was the foundation of 
all his opposition, and led him to oppose the bap¬ 
tism of unmarried grovm people as well as little 
children. But, if the baptizing of infants was an 
antichristian innovation, there was another argu¬ 
ment within his reach, and which he must needs 
have hit upon, far more conclusive than this. 
Why did he not brand the practice as a novelty 
* and fiction of the day? Why did he not declare it 
to be a thing unknown to the apostles and apos¬ 
tolic Churches? Why did he not say that it was 
not so from the beginning? If it was an innova¬ 
tion, there were men then living within whose 
recollection it was introduced. Why, then, did 
he not appeal to them and say, The traditions of 
the apostles were delivered to your grandfathers: 
ask them; for they know and will tell you that 
baptism was never designed for infants”? Such 
an argument would have been conclusive. It 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


347 


would have ended the question and given triumph 
to his opposition. Why did he not use it? It is 
evident that he could not. And the simple fact 
that he passes it in silence, reasoning only from 
his own principles, shows that anti-pedobaptism. 
was no stronger in its resources then than now, 
and that the baptizing of infants is a practice as 
certainly derived from the apostles as the Church 
itself. 

Polycarp was the pupil of the Apostle John, 
and Irenseus was the disciple of Polycarp. At an 
advanced age Irenseus says of his teacher, 
remember his discourses to the people concerning 
the conversations he had with John the apostle 
and others who had seen the Lord; how he re¬ 
hearsed their discourses, and what he heard them 
that were eye-witnesses of the Word of Life say 
of our Lord and of his miracles and doctrine.’^ 
This shows that Polycarp had used his opportuni¬ 
ties. He was himself master of whatever was to 
be known. He had been careful to tell all that he 
knew of our Lord or the apostles and of their 
doctrine and jiractiee. These discourses had made 
a deep and unfading impression on the mind of 
Irenieus. And Irenseus was yet a living teacher 
when Tertullian broached his doctrine for the 
delay of baptism until the season of severest 
temjitation was past. If infant baptism had not 
been sanctioned by the example of the apostles, 
Irenseus must have known it, and Tertullian 
might have appealed to him and settled the 
question. Or, if Tertullian’s doctrine had had 
apostolic sanction, Irenseus certainly could not 


818 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


have been ignorant of it, and would have sup¬ 
ported the attempted reformation of his neighbor. 
But the teachings of Tertullian were dead-born 
and fell lifeless upon the ear of the Church. 

Nay, Irengeus, so far from presenting infant 
baptism as opposed to the practice of the apostles 
and the doctrine of Christ, has left a passage on 
record which, though much debated, supports the 
doctrine of infant baptism against all the ingenuity 
and learning that have been marshaled to break 
its force, and assigns it a place in the very 
marrow of the gospel. Christ” says he, came 
to save all ,— all who by him are re-born of God, 
INFANTS, LITTLE ones, children, youths, and per¬ 
sons of mature age: therefore he passed through these 
several ages” The relevancy of this passage rests 
upon the phrase re-horn of God,”—renascuntur in 
Deum. We maintain that it refers to baptism, and 
that Irengeus here recognizes the baptism of ‘‘in¬ 
fants, little ones, and children,’^ as well as persons 
of mature age. Baptists insist that it means 
“spiritual regeneration,” “conversion to God,” 
“moral renewal in Christ.” Dr. Fuller thinks 
that “Professor Sears has settled forever this 
matter by an elaborate investigation of the works 
of Irengeus.” What Mr. Sears has said we are 
not informed; but we have before us Dr. Chase’s 
tract on the subject, which Dr. Fuller pronounces 
“mosif learned” and founded upon the “reading 
and re-reading of every line of all the extant 
works of Irenaeus.” And if Professor Sears has 
done as much toward the settlement of the matter 
as Dr. Chase, it is in a diiferent direction from 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


349 


that supposed by either of them. After all his 
“ elaborate investigation/’ Dr. Chase says, ‘‘ I do 
not hesitate to admit that Irenasus sometimes speaks 
of regeneration as being connected with baptism.” We 
also learn from this tract thatirenseus calls the com¬ 
mission to make disciples by baptism “ the authority 
0/REGENERATION UNTO GoD,”—not the powcr to re¬ 
new men’s spiritual nature, for no man can do that, 
but the right to administer baptism. This too is 
precisely the jihrase used in our quotation. In the 
same tract we also find that Irenaeus calls “ the 
one healing remedy by which our sins are re¬ 
moved,” “ logiko baptismata, —a discriminate or pro¬ 
per baptism.’' The Gnostics, who taught a salva¬ 
tion by mere internal illumination, he denounced 
as “ men sent by Satan to deny the baptism 
of regeneration unto God.” The baptismal applica¬ 
tion of water to the body he calls the regeneration 
of the flesh.” How, then, dare Dr. Fuller say that 
when Irenaeus speaks of infants being re-born unto 
God,” or regenerated of God,” he means spiritual 
renovation to the entire exclusion of baptism? 
Dr. Chase expressly testifies that, “ in some degree, 
AT LEAST, he [^Irenaius'] confounded the sign ivith the 
thing signified,—confounded baptism with regenera¬ 
tion;” and, if he confounded them at all, where is 
the evidence that he viewed them distinct from 
each other in this quotation? Our opponents 
themselves being witness, Irenaeus over and over 
again, in multiform profusion, calls baptism re¬ 
generation, our renatus in Deum, our re-birth to God. 
Alexander Campbell—perhaps the most competent 
witness on that point in the Baptist world—says, 
30 


350 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


^^All the apostolical Fathers, as they are called, all 
the pupils of the apostles, and all the ecclesiastical 
writers of note of the first four centuries, whose 
writings have come down to us, allude to and 
speak of Christian immersion {baptisni] as the 
regeneration and remission of sins spoken of in the 
New Testament. ... I am assured that they used 
the term regenerated as equivalent to immersion 
[baptism], and spake of the spiritual change under 
other terms and modes of speech.^' (Debate with 
Eice, pp. 416, 430.) 

When Irenseus therefore comes to speak of 
INFANTS, and little ones, and children, and youths, 
and persons of mature age,’’ all as regenerated ,— 
“re-born of God” to salvation in Jesus Christ,—it 
is useless for Baptists or anybody else to tell us 
that the passage has no allusion to baptism. 

But suppose we take the Baptist theory,—that 
the phrase means spiritual regeneration, conversion 
to God, and moral renewal in Christ. Will that 
take from the passage its testimony in favor of 
infant baptism ? Can we put asunder what God 
hath joined together? If “infants, and little ones, 
and children” are spiritually regenerated, con¬ 
verted to God, and renewed in Christ,—and 
Irenseus looked upon them in this light,—would 
or could he have consistently denied to them the 
outward sign and sacrament of these sublime 
spiritual transactions ? If infants are the subjects 
of all these inward experiences, and are “ re-born 
of God,” are they not disciples of Christ, and to be 
marked as disciples according to the Savior’s com¬ 
mand ? So that whether Irenseus meant spiritual 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


351 


regeneration or not, baptism is inevitably impli¬ 
cated, and goes along with the meaning of the 
phrase as certainly as the shadow follows the sub¬ 
stance. Dr. Neander says that ‘‘in Irenmus bap¬ 
tism and regeneration are intimately connected,’^ 
and that “it is difficult to conceive how the term 
regeneration can be employed,' in reference to this 
age, to denote any thing else than baptism.” He 
therefore regards this passage as presenting direct 
and incontrovertible proof of the existence of infant 
baptism in the time of Irenseus. But if this regene¬ 
ration (renascunter in Deum) does not denote hap- 
tism, it certainly does denote every thing that can 
entitle a man to baptism. In either case “ infants 
and little ones” are designated as proper subjects 
of baptism; and that by a man of God who received 
the apostolic traditions from a companion and 
pupil of him who lay closest to the Savior’s heart. 
Can any one doubt, then, as to the views and prac¬ 
tices of the apostles on this subject ? 

Justin Martyr lived still nearer to the time of 
the apostles. In one of his Apologies, written 
about the year 148, he says there were among 
Christians in his time many persons of both sexes, 
some sixty and some seventy years old, who had 
been made disciples to Christ from their infancy and 
continued undefiled all their lives. If these persons 
were made disciples in infancy, they were baptized 
in infancy. If they were baptized but twenty 
years before Justin was born, they were baptized 
before all the apostles were dead; and we thus 
have infant baptism can-ied up to the very lifetime 
of the apostles. And if infant baptism was prac* 


352 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


ticed whilst the apostles yet lived, who can say 
that it was without apostolic sanctionDr. Fuller 
says that Justin in this passage does not allude to 
baptism. But, as one assertion is as good in the 
wa}^ of proof as another, we say he does refer to 
baptism, and in the very words of the commission. 
And Dr. ISTeander says that he here, ‘^beyond ques¬ 
tion, refers to baptism” How indeed can infants 
be made disciples to Christ, according to the com¬ 
mission, but by baptism? 

Dr. Fuller professes to quote assertions from 
sundry modern authors to the etfect* that there 
were no infant baptisms in the first two centuries. 
We have already had some interesting specimens 
of his way of quoting authorities; and the facts 
here are of very much the same sort. The point 
which he endeavors to sustain is, that infant bap¬ 
tism is a-mere human invention, corruptly intro¬ 
duced into the Church long after the apostles were 
in their graves. To this point he refers to several 
neologians of Germany, as if they were competent 
witnesses in the case, and to several other writers, 
such as Baumgarten, Olshausen, and Heander, as 
if they believed and taught that infant baptism is 
a mere device of men, unauthorized by, and a mise¬ 
rable perversion of, the gospel, when it is a notorious 
fact that they defended and practiced it themselves^ 
as a thing lying in the very soul and life of Chris¬ 
tianity. Dr. Fuller’s mode of quoting authorities 
makes knaves and fools of some of the best and 
most consistent men who have lived to adorn and 
bless the Church by their piety and wisdom. 

It must be admitted, howevei*, that some writers 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE, 


353 


have uttered themselves as incredulous upon the 
subject of the apostolicity of infant baptism, and 
that their names stand upon the Baptist side of 
this question. But it is also true that a far greater 
number of men as competent as they to tell us 
where the truth on this question lies, including the 
most patient and thorough investigators of the 
original sources of evidence, take the ground that 
infant bajitism is a thing warranted by the Scrip¬ 
tures of truth, practiced in the apostolic times, 
and handed down to us from those whom Christ 
himself ordained to be the founders of his Church 
and the expositors of his holy institutes. Among 
these we may mention Yossius, Luther, Gerhard, 
Chemnitz, Quenstedt, Baler, Forbes, Hammond, 
Walker, Dupin, Bingham, and Wall,—names that 
will stand on this subject against any in Christen¬ 
dom who can be marshaled on the Baptist side. 
Dr. Wall, whose lengthy and thorough examina¬ 
tions have about exhausted the subject, concludes 
with these words :— 

As these evidences are for the first four hundred 
years, in which there appears one man, Tertullian, 
that advises the delay of infant baptism in some 
cases, and one Gregory that did, perhaps, practice 
such delay in the case of his children, but no 
society of men so thinking or so practicing, nor no 
one man saying it was unlawful to baptize infants, 
so in the next seven hundred years there is not so 
much as one man to be found that either spoke for 
or practiced any such delay; but all the contrary. 
And when, about the year 1130, one sect among 
the Albigenses declared against the baptizing of 
30 * 


854 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


infants, as being incapable of salvation^ the main 
body of that people rejected their opinion; and 
they of them that held that opinion quickly 
dwindled away and disappeared, there being no 
more heard of holding that tenet till the rising of 
the German anti-Pedobaptists, anno 1552.^^ (Wall 
on Infant Baptism, vol. ii. ch. 10, p. 501.) 

We have thus traced the baptizing of infants as 
the common Church-practice back through history 
into the very lifetime of the apostles. We find the 
overwhelming majority of the best and most know¬ 
ing Christian men in all ages and countries defend¬ 
ing and practicing it as a true and proper use of 
the baptismal sacrament. How, then, can it be 
viewed as any thing other than a divine appoint¬ 
ment, lying in the very bosom of Christianity from 
the beginning ? If it was not introduced by the 
apostles, when was it introduced ? If it was not 
begun by authority of the great Author of our 
religion, by whose authority and by what process 
was it begun ? To these inquiries all history is 
silent; and the world-wide practice of infant bap¬ 
tism stands forth a greater riddle than the pyra¬ 
mids of Egypt or the wasting memorials of Yu¬ 
catan. Christians are dumb as Fejees as to the 
origin of some of their most cherished rites; and 
the Christian world in a day completely changed 
one of its commonest services without having been 
made conscious of it for fifteen hundred years! 

III. But more than all this: we have clear scrip¬ 
tural evidence that the apostles did practice infant 
baptisiq. Though they were aU missionaries, sent 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


355 


out among unbelieving Jews and heathens, sur¬ 
rounded by circumstances dilferent from those in 
established Christian communities, and of course 
not baptizing anybody until some of the adults— 
with whom alone they could begin—professed their 
willingness to become disciples, we yet have ex¬ 
plicit information that they did baptize entire fami- 
lieSj —oiKoi,— housesj—offspring of the same parents, 
—CHILDREN, including any and every age. In Acts xvi. 
14, 15, we read of a certain woman named Lydia, 
whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended to 
the things that were spoken of Paul. And she was 
baptized, and her [oikos] household.” In the 
same chapter we also read of a terrified jailer, 
whom Paul directed to “ believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ,” promising upon these conditions that he 
should be saved, and his (oikos') house; whereupon 
he ^^was baptized, he and all his.” In 1 Cor. i. 16, 
Paul declares, ‘^And I baptized also the [oikon] 
household of Stephanus.” In Acts x. 2, we read 
of ^^a devout man, and one that feared God,” whom 
Peter baptized ^^with all his [oiko] house.” In Acts 
xviii. 8, we also read of “Crispus, the chief ruler 
of the synagogue,” who was baptized with ^^all his 
[oikd] house.” In 2 Tim. i. 16 and iv. 19, we find 
mention of ^Hhe [oiko~\ house of Onesiphorus” in a 
wayTvhich leads us to believe that all its members 
had been baptized, and that mention, moreover, 
made only for their father’s sake. Nor is there 
any good reason why the families of Aristobulus 
and Narcissus (Eom. xvi. 10, 11) should not also 
be in the list of apostolic household baptisms. 

Here, then, are eight oiYiO,-~families, —four of 


356 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


them explicitly said to have been baptized by the 
apostles, and all referred to as Christian families, 
and therefore certainly not nnbaptized. Have we 
eight instances of the administration of the Lord’s 
Supper? Hot half that number. Have we eight 
cases of the change of the Jewish into the Christian 
Sabbath ? Perhaps not one-fourth of that number. 
Yet the communion and this change of day are 
vindicated by apostolic practice as recorded in the 
Hew Testament. How can we, then, deny that the 
apostles baptized children with their parents, when 
it is established by a series of instances more nu¬ 
merous than can be found in support of any other 
doctrine, principle, or practice handed down from 
apostolic times ? 

Dr. Fuller thinks that Lydia’s ^‘household” con¬ 
sisted only of servants and such as were associated 
with her in conducting her business, and that the 
‘‘house” of the jailer was perhaps similarly consti¬ 
tuted. But we deny that oikos, when used as in 
these passages, ever signifies servants and attend¬ 
ants in the Hew Testament. It primarily denotes 
blood-lineage, progeny, children. “ The house [ofA:os] 
of Israel” means the children of Israel, “the house 
of David” the lineal descendants of David, “ the 
house of Judah” the progeny of Judah; and not the 
servants and employees of Israel, David, and Judah. 
“ Oikos,” says Aristotle, “ is a companionship con 
nected together according to the course of nature.’* 
“The first social connection,” says Cicero, “is the 
conjugal, then that of children', and these consti 
TUTE A DOMus, — a house or family.” “ I know Abra¬ 
ham,” saith the Lord, “ that he will command his 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


357 


children^ even house [oiko], after When 

Joseph was made governor over Egypt/’ he was 
certainly made master of all Pharaoh’s servants 
and slaves; and when it is added that he was also 
made governor over all Pharaoh’s house,” (oikos,) 
we are thereby assured that even the king’s own 
children were put in subjection to him. Indeed, we 
know of not one single case in the New Testament, 
in the Septuagint, or in all the Greek classics, 
where the word oikos, when used as in these ac¬ 
counts of household baptisms, does not specifically, 
directly, and unequivocally refer to children, and for 
the most part to children exclusively. Talk of oikos 
meaning only attendants and slaves! Why, every 
Greek scholar would laugh to scorn such an idea 
and utterly despise the man who should under¬ 
take to maintain it. It has no such meaning. 
Nor is it more certain that the word dog does not 
mean a sheep or an ass than that oikos never means 
only servants. Dr. Carson refers to the Septuagint 
version of 1 Kings v. 9 in proof that it includes 
domesticsbut the word in that passage is not 
oikos, but DOULOS, —the proper word for servants; 
and in iv. 7, where the word is oikos, it denotes 
those whom the douloi serve,—the king’s household, 
for whom the servants were to bring victuals. 
Useless is the effort of our Baptist friends to get 
children out of oikos. It everywhere denotes 
blood-lineage, the fruit of conjugal union; and if 
Dr. Fuller can have this without infants, we would 
call the scientific world to come and behold the 
greatest wonder that has been since the creation. 
Surely we need not be surprised that a man should 


358 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


not find infants included in a command to baptize 
‘^all nations/^ when he fails to discover them 
among the fruits of those methods of procreation 
determined and established in our nature by the 
Hand that made us! 

We hold that oikos means the fruit of wedlock,— 
'^vogQnj—children; and that there can be no oikos 
of persons without children. The oikoi of Lydia, 
the jailer, Cornelius, and Stephanus were therefore 
the children of Lydia, the jailer, Cornelius, and 
Stephanus. It is a fact that the earliest and per¬ 
haps the best translation of the Hew Testament— 
the Syriac—says of Lydia that “ she was baptized 
WITH HER CHiLDREN.^^ And, as by children we 
mean children, it remains for Dr. Fuller to show 
that these were adults before he can set aside the 
conclusion that the apostles verily baptized chil¬ 
dren. But, although he has all the force of the 
laws of language and all the conclusions of the 
most every-day observation against him, he must 
needs make the attempt. He tells us that Lydia’s 
children were grown men, because they are ex¬ 
pressly declared to have been brethren, whom the 
apostles saw and comforted” when released from 
prison. (P. 142.) Did ever any man see such con¬ 
tumacy and such determination at all hazards to 
carry a sectarian dogma? Let the reader but 
examine the 16th chapter of Acts, and he will see 
that a more glaring perversion of God’s word is 
hardly to be found. Paul was at ^^Derbe and 
Lystra.” He there found <^a certain disciple 
named Timothy. , . . Him Paul would have to go 
forth with him.” And ^‘when they [Paul and Silas 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


359 


and Timothy] had gone throughout Phrygia and the 
region of Galatia, they passed by Mysia and came 
down to Troas.” A vision appeared to Paul; and, 
after he had seen the vision, Luke says, “We 
[P aul, Silas, Timothy, and I, Luke] endeavored to 
go into Macedonia. Therefore, loosing from Troas, 
WE came to Samothracia, and the next day to 
Neapolis, and from thence to Philippi. . . . And on 
the Sabbath we went out to the Proseucha, and 
WE sat down and spake to the women that resorted 
thither. ... Lydia . .. heard us,... and constrained 
us to come into her house and abide there” Who, 
then, were this we and us, if not Paul, Silas, Timo¬ 
thy, and Luke, the writer of the account ? This 
was the company journeying together and which 
Iqdged together at the house of Lydia. “And it 
came to pass,^^ says Luke, “ as we went to prayer, 
a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divina¬ 
tion met us: the same followed us. .. . But Paul, 
being grieved, cast out the spirit. And when her 
masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, 
they caught Paul and Silas [not Timothy and 
Luke], . . . laid many stripes upon them, and cast 
them into prison.^^ Paul and Silas were now in 
jail; but “t/ie brethren”-r-T\moihy and Luke, of 
course—continued at their lodgings in the house 
of Lydia. Luring the night God heard the prayers 
of the prisoners and miraculously struck off their 
chains. “And they went out of the prison, and 
entered into the house of Lydia,and saw 
brethren.” What brethren ? A Sabbath-school child 
would not miss the true answer. Certainly, not 
Lydia's grown-up sons; for it is nowhere to bo 


360 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


found that she ever had sons, much less sons grown 
up at that period of her life. Who, then, were the 
parties abiding in Lydia's house entitled to be 
noted down as so peculiarly ^Hhe brethren’’ of Paul 
and Silas ? Unquestionably, their companions in 
travel and fellow-missionaries of the cross, Tinio- 
thy and Luke. 

There is no proof, them, that Lydia's children 
were any thing but children. And if even the 
youngest of them was only less than ten years of 
age, the last refuge of the Baptists is swept away, 
and the truth, rising to assert its rightful empire, 
proclaims to the four winds that the apostles did 
baptize children, and regarded themselves as au¬ 
thorized and bound to do so under their commis¬ 
sion. A single fact like this is invincible in our 
favor against all abstract or analogical reasoning 
that the human mind shall ever breed. 

Dr. Fuller also insinuates that the jailer's chil¬ 
dren were not children, because it is said that ^^he 
rejoiced, believing in God, with all his house." ^‘Seo 
there!" says he: after all, these babes are old 
enough to know spiritual joy and to utter praises 
to God!" Well, be it so,—though the record no¬ 
where says it: we know that God has perfected 
praise” out of the mouths of babes and suck¬ 
lings." Tender infancy presents no insuperable 
impediment to it. Jeremiah was sanctified before 
he was born. John was filled with the Holy 
Ghost even from his mother's womb." Baxter 
loved God prior to his earliest recollection. And 
if Dr. Fuller will visit some of the Sunday-schools 
of Baltimore, he will find infant (dashes uttering 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


361 


]>raises as perfect and from hearts as pure as ever 
honored the earthly assemblies of God’s worship¬ 
ers. And if the jailer’s babes could know joy and 
utter praise, they still may have been mere “ babes 
and sucklings/’ or else the testimony of God must 
give place to the narrow conceits of man’s phi¬ 
losophy. 

But, says Dr. Fuller, ^^such infants as these 1 
shall be happy to baptize every day of my life.” 
Ah I and where would he get the authority for it ? 
From the commission? He says the commission 
utterly excludes infants. In apostolic practice? 
He holds that the apostles never baptized any but 
adults. By what right, then, would he baptize 
‘‘babes and sucklings”? The case admits of but 
one alternative. It is either his duty or it is not 
his duty to baptize all such infants as are to be 
viewed as non-resistants of divine grace and learn¬ 
ers in the school of Christ. If such is his duty, 
then there is authority and obligation for baptizing 
some babes at least, and infant baptism is no per¬ 
version of Christianity after all. And if it is not 
his duty to baptize any babes whatever, then we 
must conclude that there is more authority for 
baptizing an old conjurer, hardened in sin by the 
confirmed habit of many years, and actually “in 
the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity,” 
than there is for baptizing holy ones like the infant 
John, or for giving the sign of consecration to 
Christ to those “ babes and sucklings'’ out of whose 
mouths God himself has perfected praise. Dr. 
Fuller may take either side of the dilemma, and 
one side he must take, and his refusal to baptize 
31 


362 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


the children of believers shows itself to be an utter 
absurdity. 

The record, however, says nothing about sph 
ritual joy’' or praises to God” in connection with 
the jailer’s children. The words are explicit that 
he himself did the rejoicing, ‘‘ believing in God.” 
This he did, not in the absence of his family,, but 
‘‘with all his house,” those old enough sympathizing 
with him in the joy of his marvellous deliverance 
from impending death, and the youngest not ex¬ 
cluded from the scene of his festivity. Nay, if the 
jailer’s children were adults, how did it happen 
that Paul promised salvation, to them all on the 
condition of their father’s faith? The apostle said 
to the jailer alone, “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved, and thy [oikos] cMldren.” 
Upon the Baptist theory let Dr. Fuller explain this 
if he can, and tell us whether, when he immerses 
an aged father, he thereupon promises salvation to 
all his grown-up sons and daughters. No, no. Dr. 
Fuller: your jocularity with Dr. Kurtz will not 
relieve the stern difficulties of your forced inter¬ 
pretation of this passage. Admit that the children 
of believers are entitled to baptism, and every thing 
is explained; deny this, and the whole case is for¬ 
ever inexplicable. The Bible says that the jailer’s 
children were baptized along with himself, and 
that salvation was promised to them on the ground 
of their father’s faith; and the double inference is 
therefore inevitable, that they were not of an age 
to make a Christian profession for themselves, and 
that the apostles did actually baptize children. 

As to the children of Stephanas, Dr. Fuller 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


363 


holds that they were all adults when baptized : firsts 
because it is said that many of the Corinthians 
believed and were baptizedthough there is no 
evidence that Stephanas was a Corinthian, he and 
his house (oikos) being the first-fruits of Achaia;'** 
and, secondj because it is said of them that they 
had addicted themselves to the ministry of the 
saints/^ But great changes occur in growing 
families in the course of eight or ten years. The 
boy in the yeviv 51, when Stephanas and his house 
were baptized, would naturally be a man in the 
year 59, when this record was made. The eldest 
of the children of Stephanas may have been ten or 
fifteen years old when they were baptized, whilst 
others may have been mere babes; and yet it might 
easily be said of them, ten years afterward, that 
they had shown much kindness to their fellow- 
Christians. David slew Goliath and put the Phi¬ 
listine army to flight when but ■ a ruddy youth, 
Samuel served as a minister in the tabernacle when 
but a little boy. Our Sabbath-schools contain many 
a child entitled to be called an angel of mercy for 
its good deeds toward the poor and sulfering. And 
why could not these children, especially under a 
pious father’s guidance, some of whom were now 
pretty well grown up, addict themselves to minis¬ 
tering unto the saints, although ten years previous 
some of them were no more than babes ? Does 
Dr. Fuller hold that ‘^once an infant always an 
infant,” and maintain that because this family was 
noted for its kindness in a.d. 60, not one of its 
members could have been under ten or twelve 
years old in a.d. 50? If not, then all the stress 


864 


THE BAPTIST SYSTE5I EXAMINED. 


which he lays upon the Christian activity of these 
“first-fruits of Achaia/' ten years after they were 
baptized, must pass for nothing; and we are left to 
believe that the children of Stephanas, when bap¬ 
tized by Paul, were no more than children. Indeed, 
the very manner in which we come to know any 
thing about this baptism is conclusive evidence 
that even so long after the baptizing had been 
performed these children were yet too young to be 
of any material force in the affairs of the Church. 
Factions had sprung up at Corinth. One was for 
Paul, another for Apollos, and a third for Peter. 
A letter is written to rebuke these disorders. Paul, 
the writer of it, sets himself to show the absurdity 
of such a thing as a Paul party in that Church. 
He tells them that he had been crucified for no¬ 
body, and that with his own hand he had not even 
baptized any but Crispus and Gains, who do not 
seem to have taken the general infection. These 
were the only men of influence who could so much 
as claim him as their baptizer. And then, with a 
certain tardiness, as if he were undecided as to 
whether it would be worth while to mention it, he 
remarks, However^ I baptized also the household of 
Stephanus,” intimating that they were hardly to be 
taken into account on this question, as they were 
not of sufficient influence or age to be much sup¬ 
port to any party. He first passes them alto¬ 
gether :— “I thank God that I baptized none of you 
hut Crispus and Gains’’ We demand of Hr. Fuller 
the reason of this total omission. Had Paul for¬ 
gotten ? Can an inspired man, recording his own 
official acts, forget? There is no explanation, and 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


365 


can be none, except upon the ground that these 
children of Stephanus were yet minors, even eight 
or ten years after their baptism, and for that 
reason quite out of the question which the apostle 
had before him. If they had been adults, they 
were just as likely to be Paulians, because Paul 
had baptized them, as Crispus and Gaius; and it 
could only be because they were still too young to 
have any thing to do with these party disputes 
that Paul esteemed it hardly worth while to refer 
to them in such a connection. If this does not 
prove that children were among the subjects of 
apostolic baptism, we know nothing about the force 
of evidence. 

The house of Stephanus addicted themselves to 
the ministry of the saints.^^ To this Mr. Ewing 
has a very just remark:—“Were this a proof,” 
says he, “that they had among them no infants, 
we might find a proof that the house of the Rechab- 
ites had among them no infants, because in Jer. 
XXXV. 2-11, they addicted themselves to perform 
the commandment of their father. The general 
terms are even stronger in the latter instance 
than in the former; but in both the exceptions of 
infancy may be equally understood.” (On Baptism, 
p. 190.) 

We therefore hold Dr. Fuller to the plain and 
direct meaning of the word oikos. It denotes chil¬ 
dren. And when we have the unequivocal testi¬ 
mony of the Scriptures that the apostles did bap¬ 
tize oikoi, before the dogma of the Baptists can 
stand they must prove that the members of these 
oikoi were all adults. We have the word which, as 
31 * 


366 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


certainly as any word in any language, compre¬ 
hends infants; and we are therefore bound to hold 
that infants are included and were baptized until 
the most unmistakable proof to the contrary has 
been produced. Such proof has never been pro¬ 
duced. A book, written about thirty years ago, to 
prove that infants were included in the oikoi bap¬ 
tized by the apostles, was submitted to the Baptists 
of Britain, with a challenge for their refutation. 
Years jiassed, but no refutation was attempted. 
The book was even submitted to a Baptist associa¬ 
tion, with the most respectful solicitation that 
they would either admit the truth of its positions 
or have them refuted; but the request was an¬ 
swered with a formal resolution to disregard it! 
And from that day to the present moment Taylofs 
Facts and Evidences on the Subjects of Christian 
Baptism remain unanswered, and without an 
ATTEMPT AT AN ANSWER, by any Baptist on either 
side of the Atlantic Ocean. 

If the baptizing of infants, then, is to be de¬ 
nounced as such a horrible crime, let Baptists first 
show us how the}^ exempt God’s inspired apostles 
from the dreadful crimination by answering the 
invincible positions of that learned advocate of 
the truth whom Dr. Fuller mentions only to call 
^^the silly editor of Calmet.” 

Indeed, with the facts before us, that oikos means 
family, and that the apostles baptized certainly 
not less than eight such families, the plainest com¬ 
mon sense will infer with the firmest confidence 
that they must have baptized infants. Take eight 
lamilies at a venture in any street, town, village, 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE 


367 


or neighborhood, or eight pews containing fami¬ 
lies in a place of worship, and in all of them 
not to find one child under ten years of age 
would be a circumstance sufficiently strange to 
he heralded from sea to sea, as showing that the 
world is coming to an end, sure enough. Take the 
average number of children in a family to be six; 
these eight families would include forty-eight chil¬ 
dren; and yet, among forty-eight children of 
parents not past the busy activities of middle life, 
not to find one child under eight or ten years of 
age would be truly wonderful. Who can believe 
it ? Who, then, can doubt that the apostles baptizeo 
infants ? 

There is another thought which we will yet 
present. 

The Greek words yistos and pistoi, a faithful and 
faithfuls, when applied to persons in the New 
Testament, designate them as church-members,— 
as persons belonging to the household of faith 
(See 1 Cor. iv. 17; Eph. vi. 21; Col. iv. 9; 1 Pet. v. 
12; Acts xvi. 1; 1 Tim. v. 16, vi. 2, iv. 12; Eph. i. 
1; Col. i. 2.) The term implies all that is in¬ 
cluded in Christian discipleship; and in the ease 
of Lydia it is so strongly connected with baptism 
as to be interchangeable with it. “When she was 
baptized with her family, she besought us, saying, 
If [since'] you have adjudged me to be a pistaen [a 
faithful] to the Lord, come into my house and 
abide there.” (Acts xvi. 15.) The sense in this 
passage would be the same if we were to put the 
term baptized in the place of faithful and faithful 
for baptized. It is impossible to conceive how an 


^68 mE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 

individual can be one and not the other, as the 
Christian Church is constituted. And to call one 
a faithful is equivalent to calling him a Christian 
brother, a disciple of Christ. But Paul to Titus 
(i. 6) explicitly applies this term to children. 
Speaking of the qualities to be possessed by a 
bishop, the apostle says, ^^He must be the husband 
of one wife, having children \tekna'\ who are faith¬ 
fuls.'^ The word tekna. is used to denote the 
children, ‘^from two years old and under, that Herod 
ordered to be slain in and about Bethlehem. A 
certain Baptist writer admits that it means all 
minors from twenty days old.” The apostle makes 
no distinction between the eldest and the youngest. 
Of whatever age, he here makes it a part of a 
bishop’s business to have his children faithfuls. 
We find also that John, in his Epistle, which is 
written to faithfuls, (1 John v. 13,) distinguishes 
between fathers, young men, and little children. 
(ii. 12, 13.) Would the apostles have given these 
significant Christian titles to little children whilst 
they denied to them Christian Church-jnembership 
and Christian baptism? It cannot be. 

We think that we have now made out our case, 
We have shown that, if the apostles did not bap¬ 
tize the children of believers in infancy and child¬ 
hood, there is no evidence in Scripture that they 
ever baptized them at all. We have traced infant 
baptism as the practice of the Church up to the 
lifetime of some of the apostles. We have shown 
that they baptized numerous oikoi, or families in 
which there must have been children, and that 
they applied names to children which must needs 


APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. 


369 


be out of place except upon the admission that 
they were baptized children. And we think the 
conclusion inevitable, from these premises, that 
infant baptism is a thing with authority as high as 
that for Christianity itself; that it is a thing 
founded on apostolic sanction, and, therefore, of 
divine appointment. We would have much more 
to say upon the general subject, but we can see no 
occasion for it. 

In winding up a very well conducted argument 
on the subject of Domestic SlaveryDr. Fuller 
finally settles down upon this as a sound principle: 
—^^What God sanctioned in the Old Testament and 
permitted in the New, cannot he a sin.” We agree 
with the logic of that argument and with the con¬ 
clusion which it is designed to support. And if 
the doctor will apply it to the subject of infant 
Church-membership, he will find it vastly more 
powerful against him on this question than it was 
for him in the cause in which he called it to his 
aid. God not only sanctioned” infant Church- 
membership in the Old Testament, but positively 
ordained and required it. And in the New Testa¬ 
ment ho not only permitted it, but so spoke and 
acted with regard to children, and so moved his 
inspired servants to act and speak on the subject, 
as inevitably to lead the mind of the Christian 
world to believe that, so far from abridging the 
former immunities of children, their position and 
rights under the gospel are vastly elevated and 
enlarged. And what God commanded in the 
Old Testament, and by word and deed sanc¬ 
tioned IN THE New, cannot be a sin. 


370 


THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED. 


Gd, then, Christian parent, and, with a fervent 
and confiding heart, offer your children in solemn 
consecration to Him who niade them, in the holy 
ordinance which he himself has appointed. Go; 
let them be marked by Christ’s commissioned am¬ 
bassador as members beloved of the Savior’s fold; 
for he hath said, ^‘0/ such is the kingdom of heaven.” 
Give them to your blessed Lord in the sacrament 
of his love and mercy; for he hath promised. 

Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little 
ones a cup of cold water only^ in the name of a 
discipUy verily shall in no wise lose his reward.” 
Bring them; and in the name of Jesus we will 
receive them into the bosom of the Church, which 
is his body; for he hath declared, “Whoso shall 

RECEIVE ONE SUCH LITTLE CHILD IN MY NAME RE- 
CEIVETH me/' 

It was the remark of a certain itinerant 
preacher that there are hut two places of which he 
had ever heard in which there are no infants: the 
one is hell, the other is the Baptist Church. 

Our review is finished. We have given our 
testimony. May God bless it to the good of his 
Church and people! The time will come when it 
will be thought strange that such an essay should 
ever have been called for. Truth must be 
triumphant. The flimsy sophistry and the un¬ 
blushing impudence by which men have un¬ 
wittingly or otherwise sought to obscure it, and 
the tedious processes of reasoning by which such 
attempts are opposed, will soon be alike forgotten 
amid the coming victories of a genuine and un¬ 
stinted Christianity. Before the brightness of the 


APOSTOLIC PRACTIO®. 


371 


Savior’s appearing all these religious controversies 
shall vanish. From Jerusalem round about to 
Illyricum, and from the rivers to the ends of the 
earth, there shall yet “ be one fold and one Shep¬ 
herd.” And in joyful confidence we await the 
coming time, when from the dwellers in the 
valleys, and caught up by the inhabitants of the 
hills, and echoed by the islands over all the seas, 
shall be heard the apostolic chant of Christian 
unity:— “One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, 
ONE God and Father of all, who is above 
ALL, AND through ALL, AND IN ALL,” 


THE END. 


STEREQTTPED BY L. JOHNSON « CO, 
PHILADELPHIA. 








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